#sogie stuff

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Really hate that the most extreme sides of Christianity and queer communities (secular or religious) on this site keep going for each other's throats while those who find themselves in between feel no choice but to just sit there and watch as their experiences get used as battering rams for each group's rhetoric, or end up screamed at or treated like pariahs for not falling perfectly in line with either group's values.

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The US government’s near-pathological obsession with trans people is incredibly baffling to watch as a non-American and yet it betrays a darkness in so many folk who agree with what they’re doing that others have been warning us about for years.

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¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Something that’s been bugging me lately is the way we Christians been moralizing sex like all those verses we read apply in a total vacuum; without really understanding the surrounding cultural and societal views that governed the way people performed or saw sex, both copulation and in gender roles during the time of Scriptures’ authorship.

And then I came to see sex as having been historically intertwined with societal facets such as power, domination, authority, etc.

I suppose I’ll get to my point. As Christians, is it our responsibility to maintain these cultural/societal views of sex and gender? To persist in the gender essentialist approach that we so often conclude by simplistic reading of Scripture?

Does Scripture demand we continue to place those cultural meanings of sex (ex. where men are supposed to be strong, leaders, women are caretakers, emotional etc, homosexual sex = forever sin without exception) or has there always been room for flexibility and change and that there was a much deeper, more grounding point to all of this? In other words, is there anything in the text that directly points to keeping up this gender essentialist approach despite the fact that how we see sex is now super varied and different among cultures and we’re now aware of our pluralistic society?

Because when you look at the text, I’d argue there’s nothing really universally, anachronistically prescriptive about that. Scripture never demands that women and men should be this or that for all time (otherwise, we wouldn’t be having things like women’s rights). The text we read is more often laws or instructions based on their contemporaries (like the Law books and Paul’s letters to specific churches in the Roman world)and the views of sex that had already existed in their time. Otherwise you see stories of people messing up because they did not honor their fellow imago dei and therefore God (eg Bathsheba, the widows, the woman accused of adultery) or people overcoming or challenging typical gender expectations often to either humble success or triumphant tragedy (eg Deborah, Ruth, Esther, Jael, Mary Magdelene, David & Jonathan, Hosea, Jesus Christ, etc).

Honestly, did authors like Paul and those compiling the Bible ever consider the possibility, for example, that our fight for women’s rights would be a thing and that we’d be debating over whether women could become pastors?

There are obviously universal themes to how we approach sex and gender (namely things like “no female or male under Christ”, passion in Song of Songs, doing right by your partner etc., also linked to themes surrounding the rise and fall of worldly powers like government and religion), but otherwise, are we meant to maintain the views of sex inseparably associated with power and domination (ex gender roles, penetrator vs penetrated, strong vs weak, same vs different) that our forefathers maintained?

Or are they products of the world as well?

Gosh idk if I’m making sense. I guess I’m suggesting that perhaps we ought to view sex from a far simpler and more world-challenging lens: The way we treat the imago dei, as universally demonstrated throughout all of Scripture. We make the judgment based on whether it is the injustice of selfish and harmful hedonism or stringent, equally harmful legalism, or honoring the partner as a precious image of God.

Instead of the typical crap like “oh you’re not married, oh you’re same sex, oh why is the woman calling the shots,” that sort of thing. Cuz it really does feel like we get obsessed with the details rather than the main picture and we’ve been doing it since time immemorial.

Because this world already sees your “worth” based on what you were physically born with, what you can bring to the table, merit, social/economic status, name, influence, success, etc. To focus on the preciousness of the imago dei is a challenge to all of that.

It begs questions about the role of culture and how much of it do we challenge, how much of it do we sit back and let happen or if we’re even supposed to do the latter? Does God’s Kingdom make room for human culture?

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So many issues Christians have with trans people and the whole phenomenon could be answered with:

“So what?”

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Sorry but it really bothers me when I see rhetoric that fuels anti-LGBT hate groups being perpetuated by people who call themselves Christians yet they claim it’s all about truth in love.

Words can’t erase the reality that these ideas are what lead to hate and discrimination.

And what’s even sadder is that their reach/influence is much bigger than those calling for living out the Kingdom, being peaceable, being welcoming, compassionate and overall being Christ-like.

When folks say the fruit is rotten… 🫩

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Welp just posted my first voluntary queer art on my art account (as in queer art that wasn’t a commission).

Not gonna lie, it’s cathartic. I’m not necessarily feeling “kilig” about it but it’s been something I’ve wanted to explore at least in fiction for awhile now and my OCs for the Horizon universe were the perfect avenue for that.

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Conservative and anti-gender affirming care proponents will accuse researchers of being biased in their findings about the positive effects of transitioning but now we have one of the most powerful governments in the world actively paving the way for increased bias and risk of data manipulation just to prove a point and make unnecessary generalizations…

…at the expense of other important health concerns…

Exclusive: Trump White House directs NIH to study ‘regret’ after transgender people transition

After cancelling nearly all NIH projects studying transgender health, Trump’s team instructs the US biomedical agency to study negative cons