Help the Haters?

On February 23, right before Shabbat, Jews around the country received warnings about the “Day of Hate” planned for Saturday. One of the organizations involved was the “Goyim Defense League,” an obvious riff on the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Jewish Defense League (JDL). These groups were going to stage informational protests about how they felt the Jewish community was spearheading taking their God given WASP rights away from them.

This is of course the basis that this country was founded on, going back all the way to the Pilgrims/Puritans at Plymouth Rock. They felt that Anglicans had a special license from God to colonize North America, and that they were the “New Israel,” God’s chosen people. So, they set out to form a pure white land, and anyone who got in their way was to be destroyed. When the Declaration of Independence says, “All Men are created equal,” it means WASP males who are upper class, landed, gentried, abled, etc. . .

This attitude is persistent today in some Evangelical groups and Catholic groups. Unfortunately, these are the groups that are highly influential in the Republican party currently, and they have tremendous political power. This is why there is so much anti-trans legislation going forward in Florida, Texas, other Deep South and Bread Basket states.

They corrupt what biblical texts say about creation of humanity, and ignore what their own Bible says about treating people. They cherry pick irrelevant verses in order to justify their hatred, and in fact, ignore the acts of their own Savior, in carrying out their agenda of hatred and destruction.

We are a very small community, and we are not a threat to anyone. Yet to hear the GOP tell it, an outsider might think we are threatening the very core fabric of the universe.

Interestingly, if one looks at objective histories, one will find a lot of writing about trans people. There are many indigenous peoples globally, from ancient to modern times, that had third or multiple genders. Quite often, as Feinberg documented, these were considered holy people.(1) Further, Transgender Studies Quarterly has quite a number of issues which have research articles detailing indigenous societies with third or multiple gender people.(2)

In biblical stories, both in Jewish and Christian testaments, there are many people who can be read as non-binary, genderqueer, etc. A review of history from the time of Jesus to the modern era reveals the same results. Throughout the Medieval period, many people were known to transgress gender norms. And, of course, in the modern period, we have seen lots of trans people.

Have all of these people corrupted God’s creation of the world? Of course not! God is infinite. Therefore any characteristic we might, in our imagination, ascribe to God, would be infinite as well. Since humanity was created in the Divine image, according to Gen. 1:27, it was created with infinite possibilities as well – in this specific verse, the characteristic in question was sex – God created humanity with infinite possibility of sex, not a binary state! So anyone who denies trans existence is in fact, denying the Divine creation of humanity.

These haters think that we are somehow taking away from their piece of the pie by simply existing. Quite the contrary, we make the pie richer and more flavorful. It’s like having whipped cream and a dusting of cinnamon on top of your pie – who doesn’t want that? (unless you have a food sensitivity issue of course!)

My point here is that we need to work to help these haters see that we are simply living as God created us, and nothing more. We are not taking anything away from THEM, nor are we corrupting anything. We all just want to survive until tomorrow, and the next day. . .

Peace out,

Rona

1: Leslie Feinberg, Transgender Warriors (Boston: Beacon Press, 1997).

2: Susan Stryker, editor, Transgender Studies Quarterly (Durham NC: Duke University Press), accessed February 27, 2023. https://read.dukeupress.edu/tsq.

Tags: featured, politics, spirituality, Transgender

Category: Transgender Politics