u/46264338327950288419

What is with the relatively sudden influx of anti-religious posts and comments being made recently? I dont see how that is okay.

In my experience, women have tended to be more accepting of the fact that i am trans. This is also backed by statistics. Both historically and currently, most men have been transphobic. However, this doesnt give me an excuse to be misandrist. I can make some essentialist claim that all men and the masculine gender in general is somehow inherently transphobic. Because that's not true. This is just a social phenomenon that is caused by so many complicated factors.

I am currently living in South Korea. And oh my god, they have absolutely no anti-discrimination laws, so racism is de facto legal. And obviously transphobia is even worse. This affected me to the point that when I was living in LA for a few months, I went out of my way to avoid Koreans because (again, in my experience, statistically, and historically) they tended to be likely to be transphobic. It wasnt until I said that out loud that i realized how fucking racist that was, and I am currently trying to overcome a lot of my internalized racism. Because even though anecdotally, statistically, and historically the majority of koreans have been transphobic, my belief that Koreans as a whole are innately transphobic is irrational.

So. Why is it okay when it is religion? Even if you just limit your definition of religion to exclusively include the "world religions", the majority of their believers are/were anecdotally, statistically, and historically transphobic. But that doesnt mean that religion is inherently or necessarily transphobic. Saying that is as reductive as saying all men or all koreans are transphobic, or at least heavily predisposed to transphobia due to some inherent aspect. Transphobic men and transphobic koreans are products of social structure and history. Why would religion not be?

Maybe these are strawmen, but in my experience there tends to be three main types of arguments made on why religion is inherently bad and evil.

1. Because they say so (e.g. the transphobic religious people that say their religion says being queer is wrong).

2. Because religion is a belief in fairy tales/magic/superstition/lies/etc. so religious beliefs cause one to be anti-intellectual and deny reality, i.e. the reality that queer people exist and that the medical consensus is that trans people should transition.

3. Because religion is a belief in an absolute and unquestionable authority, so it is impossible to reason with someone who is transphobic due to religious beliefs.

The first one (which is admittedly one I encounter less frequently than the other two) gives the transphobes too much credit by believing their claims without question, and ignores the works of all the progressive and/or queer religious leaders/theologians/etc as well as all the religious people who are themselves queer.

The second one is a bit more complicated. I agree with Wendy Doniger in Implied Spider when she says that religion provides people with "comfortable illusions", but that's because she is a scholar of religious studies which means that she doesn't use the term "illusion" or "magic" in a derogatory sense the way most people do. But when some atheists (meaning people who are certain in the belief that all religions are false, not merely people who are unsure about religion or consider themselves non-religious; also not referring to the opposite of theism, i.e. people who are religious but don't believe in any specific deity or deities, like some Buddhists and most Confucians) say stuff like this, it is usually done with the implications that they themselves don't have any non-scientific beliefs and are therefore superior. But that isn't really true. Literally everyone ever clings to beliefs that aren't backed by empirical evidence because to a certain extant it's impossible not to (I mean, practically all socially constructed concepts). This connects to number three as well, but it is also practically impossible to say that something is truth with certainty (except mathematical tautologies and stuff). That's why paradigms shifts occur. There are probably fundamental laws of the universe, but that doesn't mean that we know what they are. Scientific theories are attempts at interpreting reality, not a one-to-one manifestation of it. To me, a lot of number two sounds similar to "facts don't care about your feelings", in that it implies that ones claim is already fact or truth.

And for the last one proper. There are plenty of secular, atheist transphobes. And it is just as impossible to reason with people who believe that sex is binary, biological, deterministic, and essentialistic. This is not something inherent or limited to religion. Additionally, even religious people (at least some of them) are wary of this type of uncritical approach. From the perspective of a religious person, yeah, they can agree that a certain scripture contains truth, that the bible contains the will of god, that the concept/principle of Dao/Om/Heaven/Fate/Won/etc. are real and exist. But that doesn't mean they fully know what that is, because something a lot of religious concepts share is their ineffability (unable to be accurately described or contained by a few words). Why else do you think there is so much work constantly being done in analyzing and contextualizing religious concepts and scriptures? If someone only looks at one interpretation of religion, they are in danger of falling into religious fanaticism. You do not make anyone less of a transphobe by telling a religious transphobe that their religion is wrong. Assuming they are open to conversation at all, the better approach is to present alternative interpretations of their religion that are trans affirming.

Religion is a human, social construct so any criticism that fails to historicize it and instead treats it as some unchanging constant will inevitably fail to bring any meaningful change.

I think so far I've only said relatively neutral things that people of all beliefs (including the lack thereof) can agree with or at least respect. I tried my best to use an etic approach. But... I also want to add something from an emic perspective.

I have heard time and time again about numerous the logical arguments that disprove my religious beliefs. The evidence for atheism being truth. And I know nothing anyone says will change the beliefs of atheists who think that. But religious people from every single religion also have countless logical arguments and evidence for their beliefs. I know a lot of atheists will be offended at me even comparing atheism to religion, but it just seems incredibly insensitive to say things that basically amount to 'your religious beliefs are wrong because of all this evidence' to people with different religious beliefs. To me, it is functionally very identical to what atheists call 'shoving religion down our throats' in that it rudely disregards the beliefs of others in favor of ones own beliefs. What does anyone achieve by saying things like that, other than the approval of other atheists who already agree with them? Like it or not, religious people exist, even if their mere existence makes you uncomfortable. Insulting them, offending them, hurting them doesn't do anything productive.