TopShelf TG Fiction in the BigCloset!
I know that it seems the GLB community would really love to lose the T section completely, but I saw this posted on Twitter, and I thought that it was a really telling reversal in one Christian group's attitudes toward the "alternative sexualities".
Had me a bit sniffly at the end. Maybe it is a foreshadow of things to come?
Checks can be made out & sent to:
Joyce Melton
1001 Third St.
Space 80
Calimesa, CA 92320
USA
Note: $6000 is the operating, maintenance and upgrade budget. Amounts received in excess of the $6000 will be applied to long term debt accrued over the last 19 years.
If you prefer, you can donate through Patreon:
Become a Patron!
Thank you!
Comments
truly moving
thank you for posting this. I was moved by these people, and was able to feel a little more pride at being a christian.
wow, THAT IS PROFOUND
I had really expected the church to be a MCC (Metropolitan Community Church) chapter, not a mainstream one. These people GET IT; such a rare quality. I think this was the point Nancy was making about Andrew Newly's parents, they were all about giving lip service to the cause till the cause was in their face in the form of their own son.
An interesting group of Christians
Once the church as a whole embraces those that they have shunned, it will then be the CHURCH that the LORD wants.
May Your Light Forever Shine
May Your Light Forever Shine
So, we are all huggy feely, just like that?
I am sorry, but I am not quite "ready to make nice" to them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHH8bfPhusM
Still I am trying to absorb it. So, I sent the following email to them. Gosh, a christian who is willing to look at science as valid and not a tool of the devil! What is next, honest dialogue with the Russians?
Hi:
I was an extremely conservative Christian before I broke down. I had known that I was TG at age 4, but with extreme negative reinforcement which included unspeakable abuse, forgot it for much of my life until my early 30's. In my religous expression, I thought that if I prayed enough that God would heal me. Well, you can believe me or not, but I am absolutely honest about my sincere desire to be rid of what I thought were impure and sinful thoughts. I have not met a gay or lesbian person who would say any different.
T folk seem to be more compromised in society and I do not know why. Perhaps straight men simply don't understand why a male would want to give up his power to become a woman? I have seen stories of women becoming men in Saudi Arabia because they are sick of being treated "less than". I've heard the same comments from FtM women in the USA too.
I just don't know why it all happens, but I do know for certain that none of us would ever choose this life. There is just a whole backlog of hurt on the part of diversity folk, so please do not expect things to be all huggy feely at first, OK?
Additionally, it is my hope that people of faith will begin to engage the available Medical knowlege about this whole arena. There is just lots of research out there and many medical researchers that believe the whole issue originates genetically, and I agree. The point is that there is causation and it is not a moral issue.
Much peace
Khadijah
As the old saying goes, 'we' had it coming
...we being the collective corporate expression of Christianity on earth. It's really a shame that the face of Christianity is often me or someone else rather than Christ. We deserve every bit of suspicion and doubt and resentment and sadness that we get, since we haven't represented God but ourselves. I am truly sorry for the way I have acted in the past, and I ask your forgiveness dear one.
She was born for all the wrong reasons but grew up for all the right ones.
Con grande amore e di affetto, Andrea Lena
Love, Andrea Lena
No worries about your appology
Yeah, In my 20's I used words like fagot, and dyke and sand nigger and rag head; too dumb to realize I was a red neck. I swallowed the story of Sodom and Gomorrah; heard preachers spend 20 minutes on that several times and actually thougth they might know what the hell they were talking about.
I know one Jew who thinks that I am now wearing skirts because I was such a piss poor representation of a real human being. He called it something like Tikun, or something. Loosely it is something like "shoe on other foot". Hmmmmm Well, wouldn't go back the other way even if I was forgiven and they could perform an "Addadicktomie" and alter reality and put me right back in my little home with my nice little red neck, Bible thumpin family.
K
For what it's worth
I actually used to be a pretty intolerant person too. I know I probably come across as easy-going now, but it took someone I at the time considered my best friend, a slightly psychotic, militant lesbian "Wiccan" telling me point-blank, word for word, that I could never be a real girl, to make me reflect on what an intolerant religious ass I had been to others prior to that moment.
*hugs*
I can only hope every human eventually has the self-realization we've had. :-)
Doctor James Dobson
Interestingly enough, Doctor Dobson says pretty much the same thing - that he doesn't blame the gay community for their dislike of us Christians. He acknowledges that we Christians have mistreated them.
I was
honestly moved by this. I sincerely hope that this is the start of much more times like this. We desperately need shows of love and hope in the world so some of us can heal. It's what I've always thought god was about, what Christ was about love, healing, lifting us all up instead of holding us down.
This, this showed me a few cracks in the armor of intolerance and hate that nearly all organised faiths seem to have.
We only need to repeat this about a billion times.
Then we might not have to lose so many that we love.
Bailey Summers
Sorry, I can't find any
Sorry, I can't find any difference between this reconciliation and the other christian reconciliations typified by the platitude, "Hate the sin, love the sinner". With their signs, these folks still aren't any different than the others, still unable to see all LGBT as just members of humanity and accept them as the humans they are, not sinners they want to try to "bring back to God". The very act of these guys to set themselves apart to encourage reconciliation shows their view that they are separate from the GLBT who were marching and cheering in the Pride parade, and they were "better" than those who were protesting the Pride parade. Do any of you who are so proud to be Christians have any concept of the difference (in operational terms, not dictionary) between "acceptance" and "reconciliation"? Clue: It doesn't involve judgement, separation or trying to drag others back into small ponds where some can be the Big Frogs and tell you what you should believe or do. As the carpenter says, "A nail standing upright and different must be beaten down",- conformity is good, diversity is bad. Make everyone the same." It is the role of religion, politics, and education to put everyone in little boxes and name them. To name something is to know it and control it. At least that's the way the primitive superstition that is the basis for western science and religion seems to work. Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, primate, chordate, invertebrate, Male, Female, intersex, transsexual, heterosexual. Is it possible for all to simply be as they are and be accepted?
Not in this lifetime.
CaroL
CaroL
Please don't be that way
I'm sitting in a restaurant waiting for some officemates, so we can all go to see fireworks, but they're late. More than an hour late (they've been calling me every few minutes - apparently, they're lost). So, to pass the time, I brought out my netbook, plugged in the USB stick, logged onto the net, and to BCTS, and I saw this post.
There are so many things I want to say - so many feelings that this evokes.
As Carol said, perhaps these people really are insincere, and these are just platitudes being spouted by self-righteous bible-thumpers who want to bring sinners "back to god," or perhaps it is a more insidious kind of thing, that perhaps these people were thinking that they were better, higher, than us poor delusional societal outcasts, and they were condescending to say sorry. Perhaps. Perhaps.
Think of a lonely boy in a playground, beaten up by the playground bully, but no one came to his rescue, not even anyone coming to him afterwards, to give him a little hands up so he could get up off the dirt. Think of that boy - not even the teachers or grownups came to help.
Think of how that boy would feel if someone did come up to him, maybe some supercilious dweeb, feeling oh-so-superior because he's not a fag and therefore not picked on, not a weirdo, and truly feeling bad for the little fag, and sincerely feeling sorry, offered an "I'm sorry" and a helping hand.
Would that boy spurn the hand or knock the hand away?
We are priviledged in this country that we can even internalize and intellectualize such things, that, even in the midst of our versions of persecution, we find that we, at least, have the ability to protest the persecution, and have a bit of hope that, sometime in the future, this persecution will be addressed, if there were enough people protesting.
I can only imagine how the persecution can be in more religiously fundamental countries, and how futile such hopes for reform could be.
But my thought here is a more basic thing than all of these intellectualizations.
Pride cuts both ways - true, perhaps such contrition comes from pride. But are we so proud ourselves to not accept the apology and hug? Who is being prideful? Better question - what would a Christian do? Think of the parable of the prodigal son - should we be like the brother in that story and resent his brother and not accept his contrition, or should we be like the father in the story?
Seeing the picture and reading the story from the link that Maid Joy posted - I took away something more basic - that I felt like crying, that, for all the beatings, all the embarrassment, all the shame, all the unrequited wants and wishes that I've had in my life that I've attributed to selfish people, small-minded people, bible-thumpers, that for some of them to actually say sorry, even if it's a condescending kind of sorry - I'll take it. Imagine the weird, lonely girl who was never invited to birthday parties, and she was offered a piece of birthday cake by someone else because she felt sorry for her, for not being invited to the party.
I'm having some cake, and hoping to be invited to a party soon.
My thanks to Maid Joy for the link. You've made me cry.
To see Bobbie's stories in BCTS, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/14775/roberta-j-cabot
To see Bobbie's "Working Girl" blogs, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/book/19261/working-girl-blogs
To see ALL of Bobbie's blogposts, click this link: http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/blog/bobbie-c
Now, who's being intolerant and judgmental?
There is nothing in the story that implies that they are trying to 'cure' the GLB people. Their only goal is to show the love of God, and to publicly acknowledge that we Christians have failed miserably at one of our core reasons for being -- to spread the love of Jesus.
Even at my most intolerant, I would never have told gays that 'God hates you.' My attitude is, and always was, that my job is to show someone the love of Christ, and let God himself decide what and what doesn't need to be cleaned up.
All of us need some straightening up somewhere, and I certainly don't exclude myself from that statement.
I know that some Christians want to give you all the rules right off the bat. That seems to be a standard human thing that crosses all boundaries of culture, religion, race, and gender. We're all just people.
Even at my most intolerant, I never believed that one had to leave his gay relationships and lifestyle in order to get to heaven. That would go smack against the whole concept of salvation being a free gift.
Life is better when we follow God, and the rewards we get in Heaven are greater when we do His will and work, but the initial ticket to His Kingdom is already paid for and free to us. It grieves my heart that so many of us have cheated others out of their free gift by implying or stating outright that it must be paid for. The price has already been paid.
So, while there are plenty of vocal gay bashers out there, they are probably outnumbered by those who don't have a particular interest in harassing anyone.
I think of our current crop of gay bashers the same way I think of the religiously intolerant people who handed Jesus over to Pilate and coerced him into crucifying our Lord.
Please don't include me and others like me in that number.
Still no one seems to be able
(Erin, I am sorry if this should step over the line. Do with it what your conscience directs.)
Still no one seems to be able to derive the difference between reconciliation vs. acceptance. Until those who see us as less than themselves can understand the difference and truly accept of those who differ from them and their beliefs, then I reserve the right to consider all of them irrelevant to my life and my self except when I must defend against them.
I was raised (until I got wise to their hypocracy) in the Baptist church. When I saw what the leaders were really like, I looked around for something else, and didn't find anything that was really any different. So I dispensed with Christianity as anything more than yet another mythology used as a crutch to explain life. I was 13 years old.
Nor do I understand apologies from those that are members of groups that make statements of hate, rather than doing something to change it within the membership of the group. By not changing it they are enabling that bigotry.
By engaging in public displays of apology, little splinter groups are indulging in self aggrandisement, not changing anything. It really doesn't matter how many signs those few "interesting christian group" wave, they are not part of the mainstream of conservatively righteous christianity and their efforts are meaningless. They only give themselves excuses to feels self righteous.
Do any of you remember the 1960s civil rights activism? Those of you who are old enough, do you not recall people saying -- "Well I am not prejudiced. Some of my best friends and coworkers are ni--ers." I do. Fine, church going, upstanding little bigots they were too. By doing nothing but beating their chests, they were enablers. And deacons.
Well folks, WE, those of us who read and write the stories, and live lives similar to those the authors write about on this site, ARE the new Ni--ers.
Or have you forgotten the words of the Tennessee Tea-party leaders in February, calling for the execution of GLB&T people, to the cheers of their listeners,
or the 2010 platform of the Texas GOP who would deny us basic human rights guaranteed by our constitution, including voting, and claiming exemption from prosecution for any who beat or kill one of us due to their religous beliefs, all on the basis that WE are mentally or morally defective?
In Oklahoma, a GOP conservative religious/political based group within the state legislature proposed (late last year) that we be forced to sign onto a state register of sex offenders. It did not make it out of committee and the proponents were publically chastised by the speaker of the house and other legislators, but they will keep trying.
And these are not all, just since February. Any who wish to apologize for these people, and/or accept an apology from a splinter group without power in the group should consider if they are self delusional.
Many of you are writers. Use your talent to speak out against the conservative bigots in the religous groups you are a part of, write legislators, write op-ed columns for newspapers, respond to the bull they put out in print and over the net and conversation where ever you hear it, and vote against their candidates. Otherwise I fear they will keep chipping away at the few gains we have made, much to our regret. Conceivably until they compel our executions for being who we are.
Do you recall history? This is how 6 million Jews, Poles and gays were sold out, persecuted, and finally murdered by "well intentioned" ("Ve vas following orders") soldiers and others during WWII.
Yeah, your participation might "out" you if you are in the closet. If these hate groups aims are achieved, they will find you anyway. I wrote a couple of editorial comments for our conservative newspaper against bigotry toward GLB&T in the legislature, and about the excesses of the DSMv revision. You have to put your name and city on the piece. Two weeks later my curbside mailbox was blown up with probably illegal fireworks (M-80s). Put up a new one, it was run down by a pickup. The cops couldn't seem to find anything despite tire tracks in mud leading down the street with tread marks and paint from the vehicle on the mail box. I put up a mini surveilance camera, and new mailbox. I got a pickup, partial tag, with three juveniles. Turned it over to the cops, no criminal investigation, but a family down the street with two teenage skin head wanna be's who were renting a house moved and no more problems.
WE are not the disease, rather intolerance toward minorities by conservative hate groups organized around religion and fear of the different (just like the KKK) are.
Personally, I refuse to enable the hate groups by defending or supporting the religious/political base they use for their justification.
CaroL
CaroL
Damned by association
There are GLBT people who are sex offenders. Does that give the Oklahoma GOP conservatives the right to force all GLBT people to register themselves as sex offenders?
No?
Then, why are you spewing so much hate at Christians who want no part of the hateful intolerance of some of the church pew warmers?
You left the church because of hypocrisy. Do you honestly think that we are all hypocrites? Do you think that it is right for you to tar us all with the same brush?
Are you tarring us all with the same brush because some who call themselves Christian are tarring all of the GLBT people with the same brush?
Ok, bluntness time.
I'm an atheist. That doesn't mean I don't know about Christianity, I was raised by Jehovah's Witnesses and a part of their thing is to study and dissect all the other brands of Christianity(All of which are regarded as "Not the Truth").
The guy in the article seems to pretty much exemplify what Christians say they are all about. That's actually pretty cool.
I can't say I'd go to his church. As welcoming as it might be, I just wouldn't feel right being the unbeliever in the midst of the faithful as they gather to express their faith. I'd be perfectly fine engaging with them socially, but I sort of feel like churches and mosques and temples are for those who feel them to be important and significant as places of worship, not just as pretty architecture.
That's fine, and I don't feel excluded or unwanted in that way. My atheism is not an artifact of rebellion against those who hurt me as a child, it is a carefully reasoned assessment of what I perceive to be reality.I will say that the hurt is probably what caused me to begin said careful examination(That and very early exposure to classical literature, particularly Kipling).
I've known many fine folks who are proud Christians, all the way from Christian Scientists to JW's and Mormons and a few Catholics and the odd Quaker(I found out about The Society of Friends when C Everett Koop was Surgeon General).
I have only known a few muslims(I do live in the Deep South, after all.), but the ones I have known were decent people.
I suppose my point is that even though I can't identify with their faith, I do sort of get it. I don't have a problem with people of faith. I can't say I understand it, but hey, if if gives comfort and encourages people to do good things and tend toward the better angels of their nature, I can't call it a bad thing by any stretch.
Abby
Some Of Us Need Time To Breathe.
After all the hell, they put us through; the times we've been effectively called liars; been disgraced publicly; well, I know that I am gonna have to accept the apology, assuming it was rightly given, but I just need some space to adjust to this.
K
I can understand that, Gwen.
You were hurt by the people who should have encouraged and uplifted you. Being hurt by those who are supposed to love and protect you is exactly what makes pedophilic incest and other forms of child abuse so bad. You were essentially abused by the people of The Church.
If you can find it in your heart to forgive them, do it for yourself. Having a hard heart hurts yourself, not them. They are probably too self-righteous to really care one way or the other. Or, more accurately, they see themselves as the ones who are right, and you as the one who has to make the concessions.
The people who are trying to make reconciliation are the ones who should be the easiest to reconcile with -- and they are probably smart enough to realize that it's going to be difficult.