As young millennials, we are living in a very interesting
time in America. In the month of June alone, there have been two watershed
events. One we are still waiting on, which is the Supreme Court’s decision on
whether same sex marriage is constitutional or unconstitutional, and the other
is the fact that two major magazines in America have, for the first time, put transgender
women on their covers. As many are aware,
Bruce Jenner made his official transformation from a man into a woman by debuting
on Vanity Fair’s cover as Caitlyn
Jenner, and Laverne Cox, also a transgender woman, debuted on Time’s cover, which was a first for a woman
of color.
Two transgendered women being able to grace the covers of
two major popular magazines has brought to a climax what is going to be
America’s newest chapter in the civil rights movement, which will be the fight
for the acknowledgement and rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and
transgender--or LGBT--community. Many
people think that if we as a society acknowledge the LGBT community and give
them the basic human rights that are given to them by the creator, that it will
not only condone what many view as a sin, but it will also be vandalizing the
Christian codex that many feel the founding fathers put into this country when
they wrote the constitution. But that is
not the end of the story, for many people like Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox
are making their voices heard, and many of the millennial generation are listening.
For many in my generation see that the philosophies
of older generations, like our grandfathers’ or parents’, are not only outdated
but also highly discriminative against a group of people who are not only
citizens of this great country of ours, but also our fellow brothers and
sisters in Christ.
There are many who disagree with this viewpoint because
they would say that any form of sexuality or sexually deviant lifestyle that is
outside of what God has originally assigned to man is not only a sin, but also
a form of active rebellion against God’s will. Representatives of God, such as
the Southern Baptist Convention, believe that there is only one solution for
people who belong to the transgender or LGBT community, which is the following:
"God's
design was the creation of two distinct and complementary sexes, male and
female" and that "gender identity is determined by biological sex,
not by one's self-perception".[55] Furthermore, the resolution opposes hormone therapy,
transition-related care, and anything else that would "alter one's bodily
identity", as well as opposing government efforts to "validate
transgender identity as morally praiseworthy".[55] Instead, the resolution asks transgender people to
"trust in Christ and to experience renewal in the Gospel". “Transgenderism and religion.” Wikipedia. (n.d.) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transgenderism_and_religion>. [
In essence, the church
believes that people who are transgendered are in an active rebellious state against
God’s will, and, therefore, the government can’t acknowledge nor give them
basic human rights because they don’t meet the criteria that the church deems
to be a healthy normal human being who is functioning within the will of God. This
is a slap in every transgender and gay person’s face because the church is
stating that they are willingly going through all of the humiliation--in some
cases disownment from their families and friends and, in extreme cases, death--for
publicity. It is my generation
understands that these people go to some extremes to become a man or woman, to
get their marriage legally recognized by all states and not just a handful of
states and territories, or to become fully recognized citizens of this country.
To say that these people are willing to go through all of this for publicity
not only cheapens us as a society but as a country as well!
By Nadia Johnson
