What should we make of Evangelical Christians who are obsessed with human biological sex, gender, genitals, and what people do with them? I peruse scores of Evangelical blogs and websites every day. Without fail, one or more of these defenders of the one true penis will write an article disparaging LGBTQ people. Rare is an article about the peccadilloes of heterosexual people, even though their sexual sins and crimes are far more common than those found among LGBTQ people.
Some Evangelicals are, in particular, obsessed with transgender people. Take Dr. David Tee, whose real name is Derrick Thomas Thiessen. Week after week, Thiessen churns out articles attacking, disparaging, and demeaning transgender people. Between Thiessen’s defense of preachers who commit sex crimes and his obsession with hating LGBTQ people, it makes me wonder what lies buried deeply in his proverbial closet. Regardless, Thiessen’s unhealthy obsession with transgender people is disturbing, to say the least. If a transgender woman was beaten and killed near where Thiessen lives and law enforcement found his hate-filled writing about transgender people, he would quickly become a person of interest.
Today, Thiessen wrote another article about transgender people titled, If You Still Think It is Fair. Thiessen said things like:
How humiliating was it when a fake [transgender] woman was sent to the Miss Universe pageant in 2018? Of all the women in Spain, a fake one was deemed to be the most attractive? and qualified for a female beauty pageant??
….
It is not normal behavior to reject one’s actual gender and pretend to be a gender one is not. There is nothing fair about this inclusion in any women’s event or activity. What makes it worse is the fact that a female [U.S. soccer star Megan Rapinoe] is opposing Trump’s Executive Order banning fake women in women’s sports and activities.
….
There is nothing right or fair about including transgender in women’s activities. You will find that there is no historical foundation for these inclusions. It may have taken place in Sodom and Gomorrah but God destroyed those cities so we will never know.
….
When female athletes do not stick up for their real female counterparts, then you know there is something really wrong with many people. Maybe the problem is that many men and women think that since they are not involved in those activities, it is not their problem.
However, many problems are solved by those who are not involved. They have the advantage of not having emotional conflicts, should see the situation clearly, and can suggest proper solutions. Those outsiders can still champion right over wrong as eventually, the sinful behavior will reach their activities soon enough.
As Christians, we need to continually speak out and hold our ground.
….
It is not normal, it is not right, and it is not moral. Christians can do something with God’s help. When they address this problem, they just need to remember that Transgenders are God’s creation also, and are under severe attacks from evil.
They need to be rescued from this sin and the people who are locking them inside this sin. This is a spiritual warfare battle and Christians need to go into it armed with sincere prayer, the right attitudes, and the right knowledge. Wisdom will help apply that knowledge correctly so that God wins the day.
This is not something we can do on our own. We need Go’d help in this and other spiritual warfare issues. We are just not equipped with the right tools to handle spiritual problems on our own.
As Christians pray and get prepared for this battle, they can still speak out telling the world that has lost sight of the difference between right and wrong, what is right and what is wrong. Without the Christian testimony and witness, those godly standards are lost as no one else has them.
Stop the unfairness and humiliation of women and show Christian love to the real women of the world.
In what way do transgender people materially affect the lives of Theissen and others like him? None that I can think of. No, Thiessen is transphobic, and he rails against transgender people because he finds them disgusting. Or perhaps he is sexually attracted to transgender people, and God, Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and the Bible can’t stop Thiessen from thinking lustful thoughts about what people have in their pants or under their skirts.
Less than one percent of Americans are transgender, yet according to Thiessen and other Evangelical zealots, they are an existential threat to the human race. In the past, Thiessen has said transgender people should be arrested and put in internment camps, much like the United States did with Japanese and German people during World War II. Bigotry is bigotry regardless of the clothing it wears.
Transgender people were disgustingly used as a political prop for Donald Trump and other MAGA politicians during the last election. Based on the ads, you would think transgender people are lurking in the shadows on every corner, hoping to find a defenseless child to rape or assault. Some ads focused on transgender women playing women’s high school and college sports. Keep in mind that few transgender people play organized sports. According to one news report, ten transgender women played college sports last year. Ten. A whopping ten transgender women out of thousands of female athletes. At the high school level, last year in the state of Ohio, only two transgender girls played sports, Yet, we are to believe that a total of twelve transgender women are destroying high school and college athletics. Child, please. This doesn’t mean that there are not issues to resolve when transgender people play sports. There are, and it is up to league administrators to determine what constitutes fair play. However, this is not a simple issue to solve. If it is just a matter of testing for testosterone levels, what will happen to heterosexual women who have high testosterone levels? As a former player of high school and college basketball, we used to joke about the jumping capabilities of White people; you know, “white people can’t jump.” Generally speaking, Black athletes run faster and jump higher than Whites. Should Black athletes be penalized for having genetic superiority? So it is with transgender women. If being trans gives them an unfair competitive advantage, then it may be necessary to adjust the rules — based on science and not because of bigotry. So few transgender students play sports that it is impossible to know whether they have a physical advantage, and, if they do, how much advantage they have. This is an issue that must be addressed by science, and not the shrill, hysterical rants of Evangelical preachers. (I should note that many transgender people want this issue addressed too.)
Rarely does Thiessen write a post for his site without mentioning BG and MM, also known as Bruce Gerencser and Ben Berwick (Meerkat Musings). His latest post disparaging transgender people mentions both of us. Here’s what “Hetero D” had to say:
We know that there will be those who disagree with us, for example, MM and BG, but their minds are confused and deceived so their opinions do not matter. This issue is a product of deception and confusion as the people allowing this humiliating act are just as deceived and confused about life and gender.
According to Theissen, our opinions on this issue don’t matter. Why? Our minds are confused and deceived by a mythical being, Satan himself. What, exactly, are we confused about? It is Thiessen who refuses to accept what consensus science tells about biological sex and gender. The Line, owned by Jimmy Snow, features a weekly call-in show hosted primarily by transgender people. If you want to understand the plethora of issues surrounding transgender people and the challenges they face living in a world increasingly hostile to them, I encourage you to tune in to their program.
Matt Dillahunty, whose significant other is transgender, also has several programs on The Line. Matt is a good source for those who want to understand transgender people. I will give you fair warning, Matt has zero tolerance for bigots like Thiessen. Honest, thoughtful discussions are welcome, but disparaging and attacking transgender people will bring upon you the wrath of Almighty Matt, and rightfully so. I should note, it is almost always Evangelicals who call into these programs to attack transgender people. They are not interested in learning about biological sex and gender or making good-faith efforts to understand transgender people. In their minds, as with Derrick Thomas Thiessen, transgender people are e-v-i-l. For you who regularly comment on this blog, you have read the comments of several transgender people. Do they seem “evil” to you? Of course not. If anyone seems evil, it is Theissen, but even with him, I don’t think he is actually evil. He has been conditioned and indoctrinated his whole life to hate LGBTQ people. In recent years, Thiessen’s hatred has focused on transgender people, though it is unlikely that he personally knows anyone who is transgender
I remember thinking just like Thiessen about LGBTQ people. My hatred and bigotry were driven by not only my Christian Fundamentalism but also the fact that I didn’t know any LGBTQ people. Oh, there were people I suspected were “gay,” but I wasn’t friends with any of them. It took actually meeting and befriending LGBTQ people for my views to change. Today, I have friends all across the sexual and gender spectrum. My life has been enriched in every way by knowing them.
For you who are former Evangelicals, how did you view and treat LGBTQ people? Were you a bigot like Thiessen? What caused you to change your mind about LGBTQ people? Do you know or are you friends with transgender people? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment section.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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Nothing like the opinion of the evangenital christians, is there?
Praying about what’s in my pants and who’s allowed to touch it.
What a bunch of perverts. Really.
If our opinions don’t matter, why does Derrick continue to reference his fantasy construct versions of us? He is as cowardly as he is bigoted, and remains impervious to love, compassion and logic.
As much as right-wingers rail against transgender people (and it’s usually transwomen they complain about, rarely transmen) you’d think every 3rd person is a transwoman trying to dismantle society. It’s si.oly not true. I know a few transwomen and men, and every one just wants to live their life witbout being unfairly attacked.
I’m an athlete, competitive in my age group in obstacle racing. The whole “men pretending to be women to compete in women’s sports” is such a false narrative. There’s a massive spectrum of abilities among people regardless of whether they have a punishment, a uterus, etc. One of my AFAB (assigned female at birth) friends has high testosterone levels compared to “normal”. She puts on a lot of muscle easily and is a fast runner. Should she be penalized for her body? And yes, in some sports AFAB women are required to take testosterone blockers because their bodies naturally produce more testosterone. Do I agree with that? No, not really, but I understand why some want that.
The sports issue is probably the biggest of all the practical ones for the transgender debate. I think the matter of numbers is misleading. It’s of course true that the numbers of transgender people in the population is very low, and that the numbers of transgender women involved in sport even more minuscule, but the problem comes at the individual level, not the population level. A huge male rugby playing second row forward who became a trans woman could not reasonably be permitted to play in the women’s game, regardless of the fact that he may be the only such example. I don’t pretend to know all the answers but I’m prepared to listen to all points of view.
Which brings me to Tee. I’m really surprised by his comment “When they address this problem, they just need to remember that Transgenders are God’s creation also, and are under severe attacks from evil.” Is he acknowledging the existence of transgender people? I thought he denied their existence entirely. I suspect that the clue is “under severe attacks from evil”, meaning they aren’t really transgender but only think they are, presumably because of Satan.
I know you try and avoid commenting on Tee but he’s rather like a bad smell that, for some reason, you can’t stop coming back to!
Bruce, as a child of the 1980s growing up in suburban Cincinnati Ohio, I completely understand what you mean when you talk about how you felt about those perceived as “gay”. I was accused of being gay and actually sexually abused by some peers as a teenager. Why? Not because I was actually gay, but because I was a nice, kind decent and intelligent person who actually wanted to have kind intelligent friendships and not the drug and alcohol induced “friendships” most of my peers had. Just for clarity, I went to a large public school, not Catholic school where plenty of the same type of abuse was happening during that time. Teachers seemed to take little notice, but I don’t blame them. To this day I am not a fan of large consolidated public school systems because folks like me were lost (something I’m very “conservative” on). I did not play sports, was not interested. I liked the remote outdoors, probably because I wouldn’t have to be around my asshole peers. Ironically, it was in Royal Rangers at my uncles Assembly of God church where I found refuge from my abusers. And I went out of my way to make fun of people perceived as “gay” and to act overly macho and “male”. In college I became obsessed with being accepted by my male peers as well as being able to attract female peers for romantic relationships. All to prove to myself that I was not defective in some way.
Many years later, as a Parole Officer, I by chance discovered that these “friends” may have themselves been sexually abused by an older relative (I’m not 100% certain). Over time I came to terms with this. BTW these peers were all good old fashioned heterosexual white males, who always bragged about their conquests. Not gay. Not trans. Just “regular guys” if there is such a thing.
My views also evolved, like yours. How? By actually meeting gay (and recently trans) folks. All of whom have gone out of their way to be kind to me, knowing that I’m openly Catholic. For my birthday, one of these friends (who grew up Catholic) actually got me a very nice hard cover copy of the Cathecism of the Catholic Church. Yes, that is the truth. That was a significant emotional event for me.
Like you, I also think the issue with transgender people and bathrooms/sports can be resolved through kind and reasoned dialogue, where all parties (most importantly transgender people themselves) have a seat at the table. These issues are so nuanced that making assumptions just about always misses the mark. If an obvious male enters a women’s restroom using “transgenderism” as a stalking horse for sexual abuse or voyeuristic activity (as depicted in the cartoon above) I suspect the transgender community would be the first to speak out against that. And yes on this rare occasion, that person needs arrested, exposed and sent to prison. The key word is “rare”. Much like the incidents in women’s sports that we seem to always hear about. Deal with them on a case by case basis. I do think that shouting at and shaming people over this issue (except in response to the same behavior, like from our so-called Dr. Tee) has gotten us to where we are. I think that needs to stop. I know the anger that wells up in someone who is shamed and ostracized. This along with the unknown is what creates hatred and violence, and ultimately phobia toward others. I always appreciate your approach. Fight with reason and facts.
I grew up Roman Catholic and later became an Evangelical Christian. While I said some awful things and participated in homo- and trans-phobic actions (including a gay-bashing), I must say that whatever the Catholic Church’s position on LGBT people, most of the prejudice I felt and expressed came mostly from my peers and larger community, whose attitudes I internalized. On the other hand, the Evangelical churches of which I was a part expressed their homo- and trans-phobia more overtly. And I embraced it because, as psychologists would say, I was “overcompensating.” And I felt virtuous—and thought myself heroic in the eyes of God and my fellow congregants —for my “struggle” against “Satan.”
Long after I left Christianity, I realized that when I “accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savor” and “allowed myself to be filled with the Holy Spirit,” I was having a kind of breakdown caused, in part, by my inability and unwillingness to come to terms with my gender identity. I needed therapy, not theology: Faith Iis not a substitute for mental health treatment.
Now, as an agnostic atheist (I thank Bruce for helping me to understand that!), I am struck by the particular vitriol Evangelicals (and other fundamentalist and conservative religious people) have for LGBT people. They almost invariably harbor other kinds of bigotry, but they (I include the likes of Thiessen) seem to gloat over the wrath they behave their God will rain on us. When I hear that and read Thiessen’s call for internment camps, I realize that he and they are expressing their own dark fantasies in ways that are acceptable to their audience.
Thank you, Velovixen. Most people in our society are living at least a partial lie, whether that be due to religious reasons, family or work obligations or due to confusion over their own true feelings.
I don’t disparage someone for having to make these “compromises”. Often times a person isn’t able to be who they truly are until later in life, or something significant happens that leads to their own personal liberation.
I can’t say that I struggled with my sexuality, but I definitely (and still do) struggle with my own self confidence in this regard. When women say they can see desperation in a man, they are not wrong, and I now understand why that is such a turn off. I spent years of my adult life constantly trying to convince myself through subtle flirting with women, etc that I was truly a “real man”, instead of just understanding and accepting that I was just a “man” in the real sense, subject to the same ups and downs in life as human beings in general. It took me a long time to figure out what matters the most is how you feel about yourself, and not whether other people will validate you.
One of the things Bruce routinely highlights through the Black Collar Crime Series is how much more dangerous those in the cloth are. The hysteria the religious right directs at the trans community would be better off wielded as energy to combat the seemingly endless numbers of sexual predators with the rank and file of Christian authority.
Theissen must think tall people should not be allowed to play basketball.
I grew up Roman Catholic and later became an Evangelical Christian. Whatever the Catholic Church’s stance on LGBT people, I must say, in all fairness, that the homo- and trans-phobia I harbored and enacted (including a gay-bashing in which I participated as a teenager) was learned from my peers and the general atmosphere of a conservative community in the mid 1960s-early 1970s.
On the other hand, I can say the Evangelical churches and fellowships of which I was a part were more overtly prejudiced against LGBT people, even if some members were as deeply in the closet as I was. In fact, I realize they and I embraced our faith in the hope of being “saved.”
Years after I left Christianity, I realized that when, on my knees and shaking, I “accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior “ and “allowed myself to be filled with the Holy Spirit,” I was having a variety of “nervous breakdown ,” which may have been caused, at least in part, by my inability and unwillingness to come to terms with my gender identity. If I needed any kind of intervention it wasn’t a divine one.
I’ve since noticed that Evangelicals (and other religious fundamentalists and conservatives) who condemn LGBT people almost invariably are bigots in other ways. But fiolks like Thiessen gloat about the wrath they believe God will rain down on me and other transgender people. Such a vision, and that of the internment camps he wants, are ways of boasting of his lack of humanity.
[…] they just need to remember that Transgenders are God’s creation also, […]
Irony.
Hi Bruce, and readers/commenters. I got “saved” when I was 12 (1980) at a summer camp in Oklahoma. I spent around 37 years as a Christian, 20 years of that as an evangelical. growing up in the late 70’s through the 80’s in OK, I didn’t know any openly LGBTQ people. I had a couple friends that I thought might be gay, but I never gave it much thought. I consider myself fortunate that the churches I attended and people I spent time with didn’t spend much time talking about LGBTQ people, good or bad. The folks I hung around with were more concerned with the rapture and the satanic panic. Ugh! When I went to college I made friends with some people who happened to identify as LGBTQ. I didn’t care. They were nice people and were fun to hang out with. I’m not saying that I didn’t have ANY bias or wrong attitudes towards LGBTQ people, but as I got to know and become friends with several people who identified as such, it was more and more difficult to hang on to those biases and attitudes. I’m working all the time to undue the brainwashing that went on through my Christian past to be a better, less judgmental person. I’m sure this will be a lifelong process, but I’ve made a lot of progress towards being the person I want to be.
Oh, and fuck Thiessen! 🙂
Bruce, did you have to remind me that in my former life as an evangelical xtian, I probably had homophobic beliefs. I gave up on them decades ago, but still feel disappointed about it. Unfortunately it often isn’t until people leave the church that they start to think for themselves. Also, I firmly believe that people with preoccupations about the sexual practices of others are closet perverts. But sadly, like you said, “T” doesn’t seem to worry about “Black Collar” criminals.
This is a terrible issue for the Democrats. It’s full of nuance and a mother nature that doesn’t have a rule book. Guess what MAGAt, your 7th grade biology you studied in science class was a simplified abstraction to make it easier to introduce you to an understanding of science. Another issue is that transgender people aren’t all that common, so the straw man illustrated in the cartoon is very easy to pawn off on people and then demagogue the issue based on their fears. Republicans also like to use this a gotcha question. “Define a woman” was asked by Sen. Marsha Blackburn to Ketanji Jackson. When she skirted the question, because of its inanity, I can just hear them in the hills of Tennessee, “hYUK! hear that maw, Ketangi don’t know what a woman is!”
The worst issue for Democrats is the transgender athlete issue. I’d assert that each athletic organization should make and adhere to its own rules. I’d suggest that a person who transitions before puberty can play as a female, otherwise you either play with the boys or you’re out of luck. A person who went through male puberty is going to have a physical advantage over someone who isn’t. Democrats can be squashed like bugs, because in many cases they are flat out wrong on it.
When working at McDonalds, and later a bar, we had perverts and pedophiles trying to sneak a look in the women’s restroom, and sometimes the men’s. They all had one thing in common: not a one was pretending to be female.
When my niece was 7, she played on a boy’s basketball team. The coach allowed her to try out, and she kept up just fine. When I was in 7th grade, a girl played on a boy’s basketball team, and she had no trouble keeping up.
What has all this to do with transgender people?
Male perverts don’t hide as women.
Cis born girls can do extremely well in sports against cis born boys.
When I was growing up in Colorado, we were well aware of the hospital in Trinidad, CO that did what was known at the time as “sex change operations.” No one I knew cared one way or another. I may have met transgender people, but I don’t know, they may not have wanted to tell me. The first gay man I met was my mother’s friend. My niece has come out as gay. I have had gay friends over the years.
About the sports controversy, I agree more research is needed. Sometimes I think this issue is more about the patriarchy being riled up to protect “fragile womanhood” than it is about fair competition. The same groups who want transgender people out of sports are the same ones who want women to be trad wives. They want women out of sports, the military, government, and employment.
Sorry for the long ramble. I admit to being no expert on the subject. For me personally, I don’t worry if I can understand the science behind everything. I’ve decided to accept people as they are. It’s about human rights.
All the attention paid to gender disappoints me because Trump and the MAGA cult borrowed it from religions for political exploitaion. Their purpose is to scare, outrage, and divide, exaggerating an issue and appropriating it as a cause to champion. It’s nothing to them but a political device.
It’s worked so well that here we are discussing it when most of us had no particular opinions before Trump started quacking and croaking and telling us we disapprove everything about it. He must be proud so many have swallowed his bait, hook line and sinker, as he reels them in. He must find his contempt for Americans justified by how easily they are led. If it’s true that the worst people make trouble where there is none, then the worst gratuitous trouble makers are those who make trouble for others just to exploit it for their own purposes.
Was I a bigot like Theissen in my IFB days? To my shame yes. What changed that? Stepping into a larger world and meeting people. About 30 years ago I befriended someone at my workplace. He was in his 30’s at the time and I was 20. ‘Randy’ was friendly, generous, and easy to talk with. I had no idea he was gay until he told me one night at dinner. He confessed he was attracted to me. To say the least I was caught off balance. I didn’t say much the rest of the evening, and spent the small hours of the next morning in thought. ‘How do I treat ‘Randy’ after this revelation?’. Do I despise him as taught by my IFB influencers?
It’s easy to dislike a nameless, faceless person. But when this featureless person becomes ‘Randy’ I couldn’t, and wouldn’t hate him. In the days afterward ‘Randy’ was concerned that I would become aloof and avoid him. To his relief I treated him no differently than before and carried on like usual. We were still friends seven years later when he died much too soon.
Evangelicals hate in part because they cloister themselves and create the ‘other’. I didn’t realize it then, but that’s how they preserve their belief. “Cut off the world! Don’t be too curious! Guard your heart! Resist snares! Satan is a lion, seeking whom he may devour!” What a sad way to walk through life.
Tee’s response — it’s a hoot 🤣🤣
We got a notification that someone did not like our content in part one. We actually did not hide our arrival on that website and took a look at what was said. Not one fact or truth was mentioned and the content could not be described as anything but a hate-filled rant that was full of misinformation, outright lies, and support for evil.
The person writing it is under the influence of TDS among the many other diseases he claims to have. The drugs he takes have been affecting his perception of reality as well as of what other people do. He may not know what he is writing or his so-called ‘editor’ may be making changes to his content without his knowledge.
We do not know and do not care how he got to his content but one thing is for sure, he could not refute one thing we said and decided to make the entire post an abusive personal attack. He obviously thinks less of women than he has accused of thinking with his content.
If you want to read what he wrote just copy and paste this title into your search browser– My Response to an Evangelical Preacher’s Transphobic Blog Post. He may enjoy the spike in the number of people visiting his website.
That’s hilarious. So either Bruce has his brain addled by drugs and doesn’t know what he’s writing, or someone else is writing for him, but either way Mr Tee doesn’t like it! 🤣
Recently, I was waiting for the one women’s toilet cubicle in an italian cafe to be vacated. The men’s cubicle next to it opened and a man came out – at the same time as another man came out of the women’s cubicle presumably he’d seen no reason to wait and used the empty female one. At the ferry port of Dunkerque, the men’s toilets were closed and the lift (elevator) to those on a higher floor was out of order so an englishwoman with her hubby in a wheelchair asked if we minded her taking him into the disabled female toilet, and as we all queue-d there, two men exited them….too lazy maybe to climb the stairs!. No one batted an eyelid as they washed their hands…….europeans are different maybe…..and don’t we all use unisex bathrooms in our homes all of the time?
I do wonder something if President Donald Trump identified as a woman would the lost as a goose liberals hail and celebrate him “her” as the first female president? Or finally admit that gender identification/ideology is a load of demonic BS!?
There are too many vulgar responses available to this comment so just let me say that if Trump decided to identify as a woman then he (she) would become the first female president, at the very least the first transgender. He/she would still be an incompetent narcissist.