Tempest in a Pee Pot Redux

In June 2015, I posted my first blog article on trans people, and my 5/20/16 blog post was titled Tempest in a Pee Pot. This issue has been in the news again this month, so I am writing about it once more—and in addition, I am referring again (first here) to this month’s Transgender Day of Remembrance.

Sarah McBride (2024)

Sarah McBride (D-Del.) was elected this month to the U.S. House of Representatives. She will be one of 125 women in that position. But Sarah (b. 1990) will be the first trans woman ever to serve in the U.S. Congress—causing what, again, I am calling a “tempest in a pee pot.”

As has been widely reported in the public media this month, another female House member, Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), introduced a resolution on Nov. 18 to ban transgender people from using U.S. Capitol restrooms other than those designated only for their gender as identified at birth.

Mace (b. 1977) described McBride as a “biological man trying to force himself into women’s spaces” and as a “guy in a skirt.”

It is reported (here) that “Nancy Mace’s Christian faith serves as a guiding force in her life. … This unwavering commitment to her beliefs empowers her to speak out against anything that she perceives as conflicting with her faith.” And her faith means saying trans women must use men’s restrooms?!

Not surprisingly, Mace’s position in opposition to Rep. McBride using women’s bathrooms at the Capitol was supported by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga).*¹ Greene has publicly said, "Men [such as Sarah McB.] should be banned from women’s restrooms in every federal building paid for by taxpayers."

Tim McBride was elected student government president in 2011 when he was a sophomore at American University (AU) in Washington, D.C.*² Fifteen months later, the day after he finished that term in office, Tim made a startling announcement in the school newspaper: he was becoming Sarah.*³

I don’t understand how people transition from one gender to another as adults or even why they think it necessary to make such a life-changing decision. But I accept the fact that a small percentage of the population do make that transition and often face hateful discrimination for doing so.

When Tim became Sarah in 2012, she was largely supported by the faculty, staff, and students at a university that broadly affirmed the self-chosen identity of LBGT people. But things nationwide have gotten a lot worse since then, especially for trans people.

But currently, as opinion columnist Michelle Goldberg posted (here) in The New York Times on Nov. 26, “It’s hard to imagine how terrifying it must be to be a trans person, or the parent of one, in America right now.”

Goldberg goes on to say, “Donald Trump and his party, having triumphed in an election in which they demonized trans people, seem hellbent on driving them out of public life.” The title of her article is “There Is No Excuse for the Bullying of Sarah McBride.”

Sarah McBride is only one of some 500,000 trans women in the U.S. That is a large number, but still a very small percentage (about 0.15%) of the nation’s population. Nevertheless, most of those 500k trans women are bullied as Sarah is—and many in ways much worse than by bathroom limitation.

Each year, November 13~19 is designated as Transgender Awareness Week. It leads to Transgender Day of Remembrance on Nov. 20, a day to remember all the trans people who have been murdered in the previous year. In the last five years, around 175 have been killed, 60% of them women.

The anti-trans rhetoric of current national politicians such as the two women mentioned above and the bulk of the leadership of the Republican Party and their MAGA supporters seem to lack recognition of and compassion for hurting people. This is contrary to the love of neighbor proclaimed by Jesus.

As I wrote at the end of my previous blog post, the driving force of my life for the past seventy years (and more) has been, and still is, doing my utmost to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. My support for Sarah McBride and for all trans people facing hateful opposition is based on that commitment.

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*¹ Greene (b. 1974) is another problematic Christian. She was reared as a Roman Catholic, but in 2011 she was rebaptized and became a member of an evangelical megachurch in her home state of Georgia.

*² Here is a link from “The Eagle,” AU’s student newspaper, telling about Tim’s election with some of his background and plans for the coming year and beyond graduation. There is also a large picture of him.

*³ This link is to a June 2012 transcript of AU’s radio broadcast telling of Tim’s transition to Sarah. A picture of Sarah at that time is included with that article.  

Observing TDoR

So, are you observing TDoR today?

Oh, maybe you don’t know what TDoR is. Well, neither did I until quite recently. But it seems to be something worth knowing about and thinking about.

TDoR stands for Transgender Day of Remembrance. It has been an annual observance on November 20 for several years now.

TDoR was begun in November 1999 as a vigil to honor the memory of Rita Hester, a 34-year-old trans woman who was mysteriously found murdered inside her first-floor apartment outside of Boston on Nov. 28, 1998.

The vigil commemorated all the transgender people lost to violence that year—and that has been the same for each year since. So far this year, there have been at least 21 transgender people murdered in the U.S. (Check out this article from the Human Rights Campaign.)

There will be TDoR events today all over the U.S.—and in a few other countries as well. I plan to attend the one being held this evening on the campus of the University of Arizona.

In addition to the numerous murders, there is also an extremely high rate of suicide, or attempted suicide, of trans people.

According to an August article in USA Today, “Suicide attempts are alarmingly common among transgender individuals . . . 41% try to kill themselves at some point in their lives, compared with 4.6% of the general public.”

So TDoR should be a time of remembrance not only for those who were murdered but also for those who committed suicide because of being bullied, teased, ridiculed, and/or rejected—and many are rejected even by their own parents.

According to National Center for Transgender Equality (see this link), “one in five transgender individuals have experienced homelessness at some point in their lives.”

In this article, a trans man, talking about the suicide of a high school trans person last December, acknowledges “his own childhood experiences of rejection by parents, church community, and religious leaders.”

So I come back to the book I mentioned in my previous blog article, “Al Mohler’s We Cannot Be Silent: Speaking Truth to a Culture Redefining Sex, Marriage, and the Very Meaning of Right and Wrong.

Mohler is not only against same-sex marriage but very negative toward acceptance of transgender people also. His fifth chapter is titled “The Transgender Revolution,” which he opposes, of course.

In that chapter, Mohler cites Denny Burk, a professor of Biblical Studies at Boyce College (the undergraduate arm of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary), who co-authored the resolution “On Transgender Identity” that the Southern Baptist Convention passed in June of last year.

That resolution, which passed with little discussion, expresses opposition to any form of physical gender transition, as well as any governmental or cultural validations of transgender identities.

It seems to me that what Mohler and Southern Baptists as well as many other conservative evangelicals write and say about transgender people just exacerbates the mistreatment of such people.

But the U.S. House of Representatives is speaking up. On Tuesday of this week they launched a task force dedicated to issues of transgender equality. Mike Honda (D-Calif.) will chair the new group. That afternoon they also held the first-ever forum on transgender issues.

According to this article, “The violence against the transgender community is a national crisis,” Honda said. “Far too often, they face harassment, discrimination or violence for simply being who they are. ... After 21 deaths of transgender individuals because of violence this year alone, Congress must take notice and act.”

Today, TDoR, is a good time to affirm and support trans people.