Monday, June 05, 2017

So-called Christian groups exploit transgender boy's suicide for foul attack on community

What you are about to read is disgusting. I didn't even want to write anything about it but I felt something needs to be said because this is the lowest I have ever seen the religious right stoop in my over 10 years of tracking their lies and hate.

From The Family Research Council:

 Gender Distortion and Tragedy 
 Erin Georgia had prayed for a son all her life. She says she got one, but not in the way she expected. When her sixth- grade daughter came to her and said she was struggling with her identity, Erin and her husband, Matt, said their first stop was the psychologist. Eventually, the Alabama couple decided the best decision would be to let Jane Marie start living as Jay. "We've always just loved and accepted our children for whoever they are. I'm a very outspoken, tattooed Christian, very strong in my faith. We were just encouraging Jay."

That encouragement ended in absolute heartbreak last month, when Jane took her own life at their home. Now, absolutely devastated, her parents -- both Marine veterans -- struggle to understand what went wrong. After all, Jane was part of group therapy and started taking medication to help her cope. But in the end, it wasn't enough, the Georgias believe. "Jay was not ready to come out to the world in the sixth grade. Jay wasn't really ready at the end." For her parents, who only wanted the best for their daughter, it was a blow no one saw coming. "As Jay was going through this journey, he would go to church with us. The church was welcoming, but there was no safe space."


Erin and Matt tried to create that, giving her an environment to be herself. But in the end, no amount of encouragement could heal the hurt in their daughter's heart. That's because, like so many struggling teenagers, there's a much deeper conflict at work. For years, LGBT activists have tried to persuade people that transgender teens are perfectly normal and that 100 percent of their problems are caused by discrimination and "stigma." Unfortunately for parents like the Georgias, the evidence doesn't bear that out.

Regardless of what liberal psychologists or others might suggest, there is no scientific evidence to prove that "affirming" someone in a transgender identity actually leads to better mental health outcomes. This loss is a painful reminder of that. As Peter Sprigg points out, the most tolerant, pro-LGBT societies often have the highest suicide rates. That's a powerful refutation of the popular "it gets better" approach (which researchers just panned here.)

Obviously, these parents loved their daughter and tried to help her. Maybe they even got bad advice from a trusted counselor. But as the American Academy of Pediatricians points out, "When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association (DSM-V). The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved."

What's more, the struggle is usually a phase. "According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty." At the very least, both sides should agree that the decision to adopt a transgender identity is one that only an adult is competent to make. That doesn't mean we aren't supportive of the child as a person, but it can be devastating to encourage them to embrace a gender identity in conflict with their biological sex until they're more mature. Lives like Jane's are too important and irreplaceable to risk.

So what's the outrage here?

One would think that it was the attack on the "It Gets Better" campaign or Peter Sprigg's blatant lie, or even FRC (and The Christian Post) misrepresenting the American Academy  College of Pediatricians ( they even got the name wrong ) as a legitimate group when in truth, it is a group pushing anti-lgbtq lies and distortions under the veneer of science.

No, my outrage is over something much worse.

FRC and The Christian Post (with an absolutely hideous headline - 13-Y-O Girl Kills Herself After Christian Parents Allow Her to Live as Transgender Boy) perverted an original article about a family coping with the suicide of their transgender son into a vicious smear against the transgender community at large. The original article in no form or fashion resembles anything these craven ecclesiastical jackals with crosses carved in their mangy fur put out; not the headline ('Children just need to be loved,'  parents say after transgender son's suicide) and definitely not the part blaming the child's transgender status  for his suicide. These so-called Christians cherry-picked the article for their agenda, while not carrying about its basic theme as expressed by the child's mother:

"I know God doesn't make any of these things happen, but God sees the pain we have to live with as humans and I feel like He prepares our hearts and our way,'' she said. "As a mother, it's very calming and peaceful to know that Jay experienced that love and that grace of how Jesus wants us to be - loving and accepting of all. There's a safe space we can create for everybody. When it comes down to it, our children just need to be loved and accepted." 

The original article is sad, but triumphant in a sort of way.  I would highly recommend that folks read it. I would like to highly recommend something else with regards to FRC's and The Christian Post's disrespect of the Georgia family and the attempted desecration of their son's memory, but these so-called Christian entities aren't worth it.  Plus, if I get started saying what I want to say, it wouldn't be pretty.

If you are angry at this vile attack - and I hope you are - and want to do something about it, take the words of the young boy's mother to heart.

Love and accept your children and work to create a future where all children are loved and accepted for who they are.

Related post - Transgender Children & Youth: Understanding the Basics

4 comments:

RMc said...

His family needs to sue the Fascist Research cult for desecrating their son.

Erica Cook said...

Lie # 1 "the most tolerant, pro-LGBT societies often have the highest suicide rates."
Truth: Suicide prevention hotlines have tracked which states have the highest suicide rates, and this is across the board, not just within the LGBT community, but the more conservative the state, the higher the suicide rate.

Lie #2: "Gender dysphoria (GD), formerly listed as Gender Identity Disorder (GID), is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual..."
Truth: Contrary to popular belief the DSM is not just an exhaustive list of mental illnesses. Autism, dyslexia, epilepsy, and ADHD are just a fire conditions relating to neurological function that are described in the DSM-V. None of them are considered mental illnesses. I actually own a copy of the DSM-V and took the liberty of reading the chapter on Gender Dysphoria. At no point within the description of gender dysphoria is it referred to as a mental illness. The farthest it goes is to say that dysphoria is associated with the disparity between one's anatomy and experienced gender.

Lie #3 "According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty."
Truth: "Rates of persistence of gender dysphoria from childhood into adolescence or adulthood
vary. In natal males, persistence has ranged from 2.2% to 30%. In natal females, persistence
has ranged from 12% to 50%."
Now, this may not sound very good, but their rate of 98% is dependent on the statement on transgender girls not being a range, but set. This range has more to do with the freedom the child has to pursue their gender expression than it does their actual insistence. This research had not been done long enough to say if these children recommence their transgender identity once outside of the parental control. As an ally, I am tempted to go with the highest rate of persistence, but objectively, I should split the difference; about 16% for transgender boys, and about 35% for transgender girls. This may sound like an argument for the anti-transgender agenda but when you take into account that the transgender community is about 2% of the general population, this is statistically significant.

Furthermore, in my psychbio class, my professor knew I had an interest in this subject, and she passed on scientific Journal articles on this subject. A study done since the DSM-V came out stated that out of a number of children who were followed from adolescence to adulthood roughly 68% of them persisted in their gender expression. Again, that may not sound like an argument for our side, but it would be the same as taking a random sampling of children from a population, and finding out that over half shared a gene only found in 2% of the population. In that case, we'd say there was a strong coloration between the location and the gene. In this case, that childhood insistence has a strong coloration with being the gender they assert.

There are so many levels of wrong to what they are doing here, and these lies may be the least of them, but these lies are what prompts them to exploit the life of this young man. It is why they rob him of his dignity in death.

Joey said...

So glad the Family Research Council is still around to put out the truth.

Hey, maybe you fascist homosexuals can plot to shoot the place up. You know, like Floyd Lee Corkins?

Maybe it's time to tone down the hate, you vile bigots. You've done enough damage already. If ol' Floyd weren't such an incompetent terrorist there'd be a lot of people dead right now.

BlackTsunami said...

You are pathetic and ridiculous, Joey. Floyd Corkins was a sad man who didn't take his medication. He has nothing to do with the pursuit of lgbtq equality and many of us are happy that he failed in his "mission." Having said that, let me reiterate how pathetic and ridiculous you are with your name calling. But I'm not surprised. You seem to be exactly the kind of mental low-budget which the Family Research Council counts on for support.