... something strange has happened. I wrote a story called "Christian Feminization" based on an institution of that name described in a TG site I found called virtuousmodestlady.tumblr.com. When posting it I mentioned: “This is a story that could certainly be extended”.
It must have struck a chord. As I later explained, that story received around 11,000 reads in just two days, which is almost unheard of. Reviews of the story included one describing it as: “this titillating new genre and another said: “I would like to see more, and longer, stories set in this universe”
A universe? FM tells me that they might consider that for 10 or more stories.
When I wrote the first story I had others lined up. "Black and White" followed November 4 and has had 7538 reads since, and "My Chosen Wife" posted November 8 has had 6720 so far.
Why the interest?
I recently posted “Miracles” which was written well before any of this, and before that I wrote “Faith” exploring some passages in the Bible perhaps relevant to LGBT and intersexed people. But here the feedback has thrown up some very interesting comments.
One said: “… this story is not really one for this site. Period! A gay guy turned into a woman to correct his "problem?" Please go back to uncontroversial topics!” Wow!
But another, despite explaining to me privately that she worked for “the use of scripture against the trans community” has given me so much more material from biblical quotes that it cannot end here.
Does anybody out there want to play in my sandpit?
Maryanne
Over on Fictionmania ...
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Comments
Sand Pit
Those toys you're finding buried in that sandpit were left by me, years ago.
I've written tons of stories about the Christian??? dumbasses of the world.
The latest book published by Doppler that I wrote (The Perfectionists) contains an extended metaphor condemning the Catholic Church for its misogynistic nonsense. It's listed as a top seller on Amazon.
Laika has written many times about Christian??? hypocrisy.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Some of my best characters are Christians
When you said I'd "written many times about Christian??? hypocrisy" I had to go back and look through my titles to figure out where I did this...
I definitely did this when I made Fred "God Hates Fags" Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church the villain of GOD HATES THE WARNERS
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/10043/god-hates-warners
but despite his insisting that God smiled upon his perverted gospel of hate I honestly didn't think of him as a Christian as I wrote it; and I don't think 90% of Christians consider someone that blatantly hateful a real Christian either, even the ones like Mike Pence who believe it's their duty to "not condone" LGBT people. (I don;t condone their not condoning me, so I guess we're pretty much at an impasse on that one...)
What I HAVE written about several times is the GUILT that the non-condoning type of Christianity saddles quite a few of my trans characters with. Like 12 year old Jackie Kaiser in THE ABATTOIR
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/12566/abattoir
and in
OUR LADY OF SORROWS
who's so ashamed of feeling like she's a girl she confesses to made-up sins at Confession instead
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/12914/0ur-lady-sorrows
And young Mikey/Michelle Ellsworth in my over-the-top
Christmas horror story THE SILENCE OF THE NIGHT
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/24405/silence-night
was especially saddled with the fear of going to Hell; But in that piece the real villain wasn't any professed Christian but a vicious Freddy-Kruger style undead ex-convict pedophile who believed in nothing except taking what he wanted (and it was hinted consorted with demons); And grown-up main character Michelle in the epilogue was a devout Christian whose faith helped her in her recovery from both her childhood sexual abuse and the resulting addictions and self-destructive behavior she fell into...
And just like Michelle, several other of my favorite characters were Christians that were good-hearted and admirable folks...
Like Father Tony in OUR LADY OF SORROWS, a wise and decent man with a great sense of humor who really wanted to help Jackie. I created him as my image of what a Catholic clergyman should be, and to counter the notion that they are all child molesters. And in both of Jackie's stories the villain was a cynical drunken bully of a parent who called going to church "sll that happy horseshit"...
Wendy Barnett, the heroine of SRU: OPERATION SUCKER PUNCH
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/6474/sru-operation-su...
attended the LGBT friendly Metropolitan Community Church, and her faith helped her triumph over the malign sorcery of her despicable boss/former lover; a social Darwinian who mocked anybody that believed in any kind of goodness; like Wendy, or like the Spells R Us Wizard (who was very much a good wizard as I wrote him in that story...)
The tormented transgender main character of ALCHEMY & ESSENCE
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/24971/alchemy-and-ess...
was a Christian too, as beautiful a soul as I've ever penned, although his faith was mixed in with Swedenborgian mysticism and alchemy...
And lastly, my FAVORITE of any of my religious characters; Jasper 5, the wise and noble talking dolphin in my mermaid fantasy OFF THE DEEP END, a character that for some reason insisted I should make him a Roman Catholic within in a mermaid society that mostly believed in the ancient Gods of Atlantis, while a smaller group of merfolk belong to a cargo cult centered on The Healer, a "time god" who visited them long ago in the course of his travels through time + space in his magic blue box...
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/60766/deep-end-2-fun-...
Kind of weird that I would people my stories with so many Christian characters,
considering how I find the Tao te Ching and the Buddhist Sutras a better fit to
my sense of spirituality than the Bible, but I guess it's an Italian heritage thing,
all those centuries of Catholicism have found their way into my DNA somehow...
~well that's enough plugging my own stories for one day I'm gonna go play in the tar pit now-
Moooo I'm a mastadon! Hugs, Veronica
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
I did a story kind of like that
without the religious element: https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/51614/guaranteed-cure
Sandpit? Not sandbox?
I don't think stories in this vein will get the same reception as your other stories. If you're good with that, then go for it.
However, your mention of "passages in the Bible perhaps relevant to LGBT and intersexed people" doesn't sound promising. It's daunting. I doubt that anything good can come from that source, but maybe you've got something in mind that I haven't yet heard.
- io
In 2 Days?
11,000 hits in two days? I have only one story over 10,000 hits here -- "John's Living Nightmare" perhaps approaching 14000. It's far more than any other story, and it took two or three years to creep up to 10 000. It has fewer hits on Fictionmania.
As yet, I'm unfamiliar with the Universe. I could potentially write in it, as I have written religion into my stories before. A certain religious aspect grew like a tumor in my BB novel.
-- Daphne Xu
A better quality of reader here
Than on FM.
Samantha
I'm not going to go into my
I'm not going to go into my beliefs again, but please know, we're not all Christian Dumbasses.
Hugs!
Rosemary
??????
Note the question marks in my comments.
All of the stories referenced are about the hypocrites who call themselves Christians while abusing their fellow man.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Yes
but here and on other sites those of us professing our faith and our gender identity deal frequently with comments that feel the need to question our faith; some subtle and perhaps unintentional, but some pointed. As much as many members of my community of faith consider that faith and and expression in the LGBTQ faith to be entirely incongrous, the converse is equally true. Folks who are LGBT and/or Q often express more than astonishment that any transgender person could possibly be Christian.
I can't begin to list the number of comments to blogs and even stories that paint us with a very broad brush. And often, the depictions of Christians in stories are cartoonish and stereotypical. I think perhaps that in the broad context of the blog itself and the various responses, that certainly is understandable for us to feel defensive, just as any of us as transgender would feel the same way in an article about our gender expression.
Love, Andrea Lena
Christian vs christian
In Hebrew history God (who is neither male nor female) gave Moses 10 commandments for his people. Then Moses and his brother Aaron wrote a shit load of regulations to interpret those 10 commandments. Jesus came along and gave just 2 commandments. Now we all know officials just can’t stand that. No room for corruption. As soon as the church grew large enough charismatic leaders took control to harness its power and viola rules, regulations, corruption! Satan, the archangel charged with opposing the one way of heaven, works diligently to promote chaos and corruption. Church leaders are his primary targets. (That includes non-Christian faiths equally. Evil is universal.) Tell me this doesn’t explain a lot of human history. It even explains the 2020 US election....
BAK 0.25tspgirl
Could it be... SATAN?
I have been waiting for an excuse to post this brilliant song and video.
Whether it's all the work of a traitorous fallen angel or not
this is a pretty good summation of world history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-dx9KaTKxE
(And if you don't like history it's got big twerking booties.)
God Bless Andy Prieboy!!
~hugs, Veronica
Well shit, I guess it really CAN happen here..,
.
Make Eden Great Again
Let's turn it up to eleven.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfhphrmKdsg
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Is New Better than Old?
The Old Testament is full of prohibitions and weird directions. Things like don't sit where a menstruating woman has sat: "And if a woman have an issue, and her issue in her flesh be blood, she shall be put apart seven days: and whosoever toucheth her shall be unclean until the even. And every thing that she lieth upon in her separation shall be unclean: every thing also that she sitteth upon shall be unclean. And whosoever toucheth her bed shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in water, and be unclean until the even." Leviticus 15:19-21.
My particular favorite is chop of the hand of a woman who grabs you by the nuts in a scuffle with her man: "When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets: Then thou shalt cut off her hand, thine eye shall not pity her." Deuteronomy 25:11-12.
And of course there are the directions not to have sex with one of your own, and not to wear women's clothes.
Plenty of "preachers" talk about holy scripture and pick up some prohibitions while ignoring others. Why? They have their own agenda. It might be driven by fear or sexual insecurity. Who knows.
The New Testament is largely about love an inclusivity, but it will be clear that the co-founder of Christianity - Paul - had his own issues despite his clear wisdom. His own celibacy and fear of collapse into sin might point to something. I think that we can say that Jesus was (in a word) more relaxed.
The problem is not about belief but forcing that belief on others, through laws (we have plenty) and social pressures that make no sense in reality.
Literature (can I be so bold as to say that is what Big Closet is about?) is all about exploring these kinds of conflicts, seriously or humorously. My stories in the area are definitely of the second type. Religion is the source of much tragedy in the world and I do not propose to contribute to it.
Maryanne