A message from Darren

This post is by Darren, and I’m very happy to post it for him. I haven’t changed anything except to italicize his words and add a couple of paragraph breaks for readability in blog format.

I’ve put this off for far too long.

To some of you this may come as a surprise. Others may have seen this coming a mile away.

Studies have shown that autistic individuals are 4 times as likely as neurotypicals to identify as LGBT. Current studies don’t make it clear if this is due to differences in hormone levels or some other biological or chemical difference, or if we’re simply more likely to defy rules and social constructs we see as stupid.

I identify as pangender. That falls under the umbrella of transsexual, the T in LGBT. I also identify as asexual, the A in LGBTQIA. I also identify as demiromantic, which is on the aromantic spectrum and also part of the A.

When I came out to my pastor, he loaned me a book called “Gender Ideology: What every Christian needs to know.” This book claims that gender is the same as sex as purely defined by X and Y chromosomes, and that any claim to the contrary is a rejection of God’s plan, denial of reality, mental illness, and lies of the devil. The book is therefore in favor of gender conversion therapy. The official Baptist Faith and Message, while not as detailed or explicit, holds the same view.

While I have not found the flaws in the theology, the book’s claims of science are nothing but pseudo-science. Pseudo-science only seeks to prove things, which you can easily do by picking and choosing what evidence you’re looking at. Real science looks to create theories that can be disproven, and only by failing to disprove a theory, or failing to prove the null hypothesis, can you be sure of your theory.

Decades ago, humanity set out with the questions “We know women/black people are inferior, but how are they inferior?” Because they asked a leading question, they were able to scientifically “prove” that women and people of color are inferior, even though we have since proven that they aren’t. This book is no more scientific. The book likes to cite ISNA, the Intersex Society of North America. But the section of the book where they break down DNA and assign gender (XX= female, XY = male, XXY = male, etc.) isn’t cited. Why? Because ISNA provides strong evidence to the contrary (https://isna.org/faq/y_chromosome/).

Furthermore, the books claims that gender conversion therapy was discontinued and gender identity disorder changed to gender dysphoria was cultural and political, not scientific, is not backed by the official statement from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) or The National Association of Social Workers (NASW).  “The stigmatization of LGBT persons creates a threat to the health and well-being of those affected which, in turn, produces the social climate that pressures some people to seek change in sexual orientation or gender identity (Haldeman, D.,1994; HRC, 2015). However, no data demonstrate that SOCE or reparative therapy or conversion therapy is effective, rather have succeeded only in short term reduction of same-sex sexual behavior and negatively impact the mental health and self-esteem of the individual (Davison, G., 1991; Haldeman, D., 1994, APA, 2009). The NASW National Committee on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Issues believes that SOCE can negatively affect one’s mental health and cannot and will not change sexual orientation or gender identity”

Once humans notice a pattern, our brains look for confirmation of the pattern and tend to disregard things that don’t fit the pattern. These are useful cognitive tools, until they aren’t. So, we notice that girls cry more…that’s literally true… but then we say stuff like “women are more emotional” (not as true).  Testosterone levels inhibit certain aspects of crying, as do hormones that both men and women have, but women have in greater quantity that relate to lactation. Men also have larger tear ducts, so their tears go down their nasal cavity more easily and are less likely to spill over onto their cheeks. We take these differences as signs that “men are ___” and “women are ___”. That’s a pattern, and then our brains look for evidence that the pattern is correct and ignores evidence that it is not (all this happens below the level of awareness; we’re not doing that on purpose, it’s just how brains work).

Our schema of swans only includes white swans until we come across black swans. We then either need to change our schema of what swans are or find a way to disregard the non-white swans. Rationalization, initially, takes less energy than changing the schema, so we usually start there. Eventually, with enough evidence, we might be forced to confront our schema and modify them a bit. The result of all of that is that we overcouple a trait possessed by all/most/many people to a subgroup of humans.

We like things to be black and white, we don’t like shades of gray. So, we take human characteristics, and arbitrarily divvy them up. Only women are allowed to be emotional, only men are allowed to be strong. How do we convince men to join the military or force women to play certain roles? By telling them that it’s part of there identity. This same need for order and homogeneity is what leads to racism, ableism, and all sorts of issues. 

But as a pangender, asexual, demiromantic, autistic adult who stutters, this creates all sorts of problems for me. Being a member of any group is about joining together around common goals or values. Religion theoretically exists to unite people around religious values (so, love and serve God and the community).  Every piece of energy I give to anxiety about the group or my role within the group is energy I can’t give to the common goal.  It’s a bandwidth problem. We only have some much energy and attention and give-a-darn to give, and if you’re putting all your spoons into not looking weird, not making people uncomfortable, etc., it’s going be hard to focus on love and service.

We all have to put some energy into group cohesion and therefore making ourselves and other people comfortable, but if we’re spending too much time and energy on fitting in, we can’t be productive. If I’m spending all my energy on following the rules and compromising on who I am in order to fit in, then I can’t serve God or my community. For the sake of my mental health and my ability to pursue my goals, I need to be able to find I place where I belong, and I can be my authentic self. 

Therefore, I have come to the realization that I must leave the Baptist church. To do anything else would be self-destructive and interfere with my ability to serve God.

Wow. This is an impressive piece and I appreciate Darren allowing me to reprint it.

To send Kristina a comment, email turning51bykristina@gmail.com (And if you would like to send Darren a comment and don’t have his email, I can forward it to him for you.)