Focused GOP Tackles Nation’s Top Threats: Trans Kids and Black Identities
I. We Can All Sleep Better
The nation can sleep better. It hasn’t been an easy road for most of America. But better days are ahead.
With the 2024 election cycle rapidly approaching, the GOP has been focused on showing it has the solutions to America’s gravest problems. It has been especially diligent in prioritizing where it spends its resources and political capital at the state and federal levels.
The GOP’s priority issues? Trans kids and Black identities.
Conservative leaders in statehouses around the country launched a series of legislative actions revealing the GOP’s national strategy. These actions range from banning books and curriculum on LGBTQ lives and Black identities, to criminalizing gender-affirming health care. Record numbers of anti-LGBTQ and anti-CRT bills, including hundreds specifically targeting trans youth, are making their way through state legislatures.
In the run-up to declaring his candidacy for President, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has been setting the stage, first by banning Critical Race Theory (CRT), social and emotional learning, social justice, and culturally responsive teaching in public schools. The ban was initiated to spare white students in K-12 public schools from learning about the systemic atrocities committed against Black and indigenous peoples. It didn’t take long before other states followed suit with their own anti-CRT bills.
DeSantis then broadly extended the CRT ban by signing the Stop-Woke (Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees) Act. The Stop-Woke Act bans all educational institutions and businesses from teaching content that makes students or employees “feel guilt, anguish or any form of psychological distress” due to their race, color, sex or national origin. Does not apply, obviously, to trans and Black identities.
Unsurprisingly, the success in banning CRT was quickly followed by anti-LGBTQ legislation. DeSantis next signed Florida’s Don’t Say Gay law, which bans books, teaching materials, and discussions that acknowledge LGBTQ identities in public schools. Despite protests by educators and families, the law will soon be extended to all K-12 grades.
In 2021, the American Library Association reported 1,597 book challenges or removals, the highest number since they began tracking the crisis. By far, most of the books banned in 2021 were written by or about LGBTQ or Black experiences.
At a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, which was held in response to the crisis, Ruby Bridges herself testified that the children’s book “Ruby Bridges Goes to School,” was one of the most challenged books of 2021. The book tells the story of her experiences as the first Black child to integrate a New Orleans elementary school.
At the federal level, the GOP has been just as active. Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene sponsored a bill in Congress that mirrors DeSantis’ Don’t Say Gay bill and another that criminalizes gender-affirming health care, making it a felony to provide care that every major medical association considers safe, effective and medically necessary.
If trans kids and Black identities are the greatest threats to America, they soon won’t be – the GOP has gone all-in on neutralizing them.
There are skeptics, however, who question the GOP’s priorities. I count myself among them.
We face both internal and external threats to our security, as well as economic instabilities and a multitude of other crises. With the stakes so high, it’s only sensible to examine the GOP’s strategy, motivation, and methods for prioritizing these threats and challenges.
In full disclosure, I must tell you that I’m the dad of a trans kid. My perspective is shaped by what I’ve learned over the last decade through our family’s journey and in advocating for some of the most vulnerable and beautiful souls on this planet. The other relevant thing to know is that I’m an engineer – and I embrace the scientific method.
II. A Closer Look at GOP Strategy
It’s obvious to even the casual observer that trans kids and Black identities have been targeted by the GOP over the past five years. If from nothing else, the evidence is in the record number of legislative actions directed their way. But it is also evident in the proliferation of well-funded, high-profile ad campaigns and the talking points of conservative leaders that intentionally dehumanize and vilify trans and Black communities.
The GOP’s motivation with these campaigns and talking points is also quite clear as they serve only one purpose – to incite fear and rage against trans and Black communities. That fear and rage are what drive the GOP’s voting base to the polls.
What we have been witnessing is a coordinated, simultaneous launch of legislative assaults at every level and branch of government. These are not the disjointed actions of a few conservative extremists. They are the result of an intentional and highly organized movement, one with roots dating back to slavery.
It is this movement coming above ground that is responsible for the wave of legislation and violence against trans and Black communities. This movement is known as Christian nationalism.
In her recent book The Power Worshippers, Katherine Stewart chronicles her decades-long investigation into Christian nationalism. The sobering reality is that Christian nationalism is a worldwide network of evangelical and like-minded religious organizations funded by a dark web of extremely wealthy, old-money conservative families.
More than half of Republicans now openly identify as Christian nationalists. Not all Christian nationalists are card-carrying members of the American Nazi Movement, KKK, Proud Boys, or Oath Keepers, but there is no doubt many still deeply identify with the ideology of white nationalism sanctified by a militant, evangelical version of Christianity.
A firmly held religious belief is enough justification for those legislators to create laws that jeopardize my son’s life and would put me in prison – possibly for life. We’re not far removed from when similar rationale was used to justify genocide, slavery, and segregation of Black and indigenous peoples. In this, America is no different than the tyrannical theocracies that govern by sharia law.
For example, on the House floor in 2021, Rep. Marjory Taylor-Greene stated that her opposition to the LGBTQ Equality Act is not just to protect America, but to protect all of God’s creation:
“God created us male and female. In his image, he created us. The Equality Act that we are to vote on this week destroys God’s creation. It also completely annihilates women’s rights and religious freedom.”
In the hundreds of bills being introduced at the federal and state level, GOP leaders are quite clear that trans kids represent one of America’s greatest existential threats and apparently hold the key to destroying all of God’s creation. I wouldn’t have guessed my son had that kind of power, but ok. The good news is that he probably won’t use it, as I’m pretty sure he just wants to be a regular kid.
As we always seem to be defending the humanity of trans kids, my son shared about his experiences in elementary school for a story in the Detroit News. He was the first openly trans student in the Dexter school district and described his experience in this way,
“It was pretty normal. I was treated like every other kid. My parents talked to the principal (Craig McCalla) and he talked to my teacher. There were no problems. Curious kids, they asked questions.”
The normalcy of my son’s school experience and the cautious optimism we maintained would end as he started high school this past year. In Michigan, conservatives recently sponsored House Bill 6454, similar to bills eventually passed into law in states like Texas and Alabama. HB-6454 seeks to prevent gender-affirming health care for trans and gender non-conforming youth. It also seeks to criminalize supportive parents and health providers as child abusers – a federal offense with a potential sentence of life in prison.
What exactly is my crime? I’m the dad of a 14-year-old transgender son and I make it possible for him to follow the medical recommendations of pediatric endocrinologists at the University of Michigan Health System (UMHS), one of the top-ranked medical institutions in the world.
The University of Michigan Health System provides gender dysphoria diagnoses and gender-affirming care that aligns with the evidence-based practices called for by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the American Psychology Association (APA), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the Pediatric Endocrine Society (PES), among others.
So exactly why are trans kids suddenly one of the highest priorities of the GOP? Are conservatives really trying to protect trans kids? Do conservatives have evidence that every major medical and mental health organization in the U.S., including our pediatric endocrinologists at the University of Michigan, have somehow neglected to consider?
No. The anti-trans movement is not motivated out of care for trans kids. No more than segregation was motivated out of care for Black Americans.
III. We’ve Been Here Before
I can still vividly recall a state school board meeting several years back. We were hoping the state would approve guidance to help all public schools create safe and inclusive learning environments for LGBTQ students. Along with other supportive parents and allies, I talked openly about our family’s story and the ways in which our educators and school district successfully supported our transgender son since kindergarten.
I had come to expect the occasional minister and religious parent who voiced their concerns at these types of meetings. But this time was different. I didn’t anticipate the busloads of evangelical Christians, entire church congregations filling the meeting hall and lobby and spilling out onto the plaza. I also didn’t anticipate the viciousness in which they would condemn trans students as abominations to God and a threat to other children.
It is the faces of the protestors that I remember most. Their faces are as familiar as they are dispiriting because we’ve seen them before, far too many times. They are the faces captured in the iconic photo of Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine, walking determinedly through a crowd of angry white protesters.
In that single photo, the unfiltered truth of where Arkansas and much of our society stood on racial equality was exposed for all to see. Black communities were not just segregated, they were dehumanized.
The photo serves as a warning, that despite the appearance of progress, we have a long, long way to go. Nearly seventy years later, the faces in that crowd seem to reappear whenever systemic racism, in particular anti-Black racism, and injustice are challenged.
What many of us failed to grasp is that Christianity, as with all religions, is just as easily weaponized today as it was in colonial America and Europe before that. Through the centuries, religious exploitation proved such an effective way to control a populace that it became the ultimate weapon of oppressive empires.
It is the very nature of faith that makes it susceptible to the most egregious forms of manipulation and corruption. Armies can be raised, and conquests fought by framing any topic as a battle between good and evil.
The same fear and rage that so effectively drive the GOP’s voting base to the polls are equally effective at inciting violence and bloodshed against trans and Black communities.
Trans people, especially Black and Native American trans women, experience around four times the violence as the cisgender population. The relentless dehumanization and demonization of trans youth has also caused an already devastating suicide rate to rise even further.
In addition to attacks against trans people, trans-affirming educators and allies are often targeted by radio hosts, influencers, and podcasters who make false accusations about them on social media and expose them to abuse and violence. It has led to death threats against doctors and even bomb threats like the ones made against Boston’s Children Hospital.
We can expect the lethality of the violence to escalate as the GOP continues its fear-mongering campaigns. Violence like the lynching of Rasheem Carter in Mississippi, the mass murders of Black shoppers in Buffalo, NY, and of course the violent rioting by white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups in Charlottesville, VA – widely seen as the coming-out party for the emboldened alt-Right and what should have been a wake-up call for our country. Instead, we stayed asleep.
Perhaps we missed the obvious warning signs because of the relentless attacks against individual liberties, so frequent we became oblivious to them. Legislation and violence coming in waves, pinning us to the ground, making it impossible to breathe.
None of this is new, as Kristin Du Mez points out in her book, Jesus and John Wayne. It’s entirely consistent with enduring, mainstream evangelical values, where leaders have long preached a “mutually reinforcing vision of Christian masculinity — of patriarchy and submission, sex and power.”
Right-wing groups like the Heritage Foundation and Family Policy Alliance saw the writing on the wall with respect to gay marriage and shifted their propaganda and political focus to trans kids. They continue to wage disinformation campaigns in an attempt to discredit the medical and mental health community’s Standards of Care and help state legislators draft bans on gender-affirming health care.
The false claims that gender dysphoria is simply a mental illness were debunked, as were the claims about massive numbers of trans kids detransitioning. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, conservatives’ anti-trans campaigns caught fire.
Those who practice fear mongering are not constrained by facts and evidence. This is especially true for the Christian-centered group of medical and mental health practitioners who reject evidence-based practices in favor of their personal interpretation of biblical principles. These practitioners follow in a long line of racist medical professionals who supported the dehumanization and segregation of Black Americans based on pseudo-science and claims that white superiority was biblically ordained.
The attack on public education by evangelical Christians is also far from a new strategy. It began with the landmark Brown v. Board of Education 1954 supreme court decision. Some people may be surprised to hear that Christian nationalism as we know it today is deeply rooted in white supremacist ideology. That landmark decision legally ended racial segregation in public schools and prompted evangelical leaders like Bob Jones, Jr. and Jerry Falwell to establish their own Christian schools.
Starting in the 1960’s, a wave of private Christian schools were launched with the express purpose of banning admission of Black students and preserving racial segregation. Their curriculum continued the indoctrination of white supremacist and Christian values in K-12 and post-secondary colleges and universities well into the 1970’s.
Black civil rights protections are continually attacked at the federal, state, and local levels. As Dr. Carol Anderson points out in her book, “One Person, No Vote,” voter suppression didn’t end after the Voting Rights Act of 1965 – far from it, as witnessed by recent Jim Crow 2.0 legislation that spread across the nation.
Christian nationalists have made no secret of the Holy War they are waging against us. Today’s crusaders advertise themselves as soldiers, but Jesus as the Prince of Peace has been replaced by a ripped, AK-47 brandishing Warrior Jesus. A Jesus made in their image.
This isn’t just about trans kids, Black lives, women’s bodily autonomy, or any single issue on the political spectrum. It’s about the systemic dehumanization and persecution of all those who do not conform to white, Christian nationalist ideology.
Some saw the warning signs because they can’t afford to sleep. The Black community knows they have to Stay Woke just to stay alive. Racial violence is as real today as it was during segregation and slavery. The same is true for Japanese Americans who lived through forced internment, and all those who face racism and othering on a daily basis, like Asian and Muslim Americans, and many people of color.
The warning signs were of course recognized by people of Jewish faith. The feeling of impending doom is unmistakable to those whose lives were affected by the Holocaust. The script rarely changes, only the players.
To the trans community, it seems we are in the sixth stage in the Ten Stages of Genocide developed by Dr. Gregory Stanton. While we may not yet see the scale of atrocities described in stages seven through ten, we are clearly on a genocidal path.
We also know that many of the stages can occur simultaneously, with a suddenness that precludes intervention. It is for this reason we must fight to counteract the forces at every stage of the process. Unfortunately, the legislative onslaught this year shows that our country is accelerating down this path. We seem incapable of even slowing down these processes, much less stopping them.
Perhaps we have been deluded by the illusion of progress and an assumption that democracy will always prevail. Perhaps we have convinced ourselves that people are generally coming around to accepting differences and it will be enough to tip the scales on the side of justice and equality.
Dr. Clayborne Carson, the first Director of the MLK Research Institute at Stanford, would often say, “don’t ever forget, democracy is still an experiment.”
What we continue to ignore is that systems of injustice do not care if a majority of the population disagrees – those systems have always been disproportionately controlled by a relatively small, but enormously wealthy and influential elite. Even when we make gains, we are only one election cycle from having them reversed.
The weaponization of religion has proven time and time again to be resistant to arguments based on reason. It is irrational for us to keep debating the humanity of our children thinking we will have a different outcome.
Yes, we must continue to fight this legislation in the courts, we will continue to get out the vote, we will try to open hearts and minds – all of these things are necessary, but in no way sufficient.
In the enraged faces of the Christian protestors at the school board meeting, I finally understood why we are still fighting battles against systemic racism, some 70 years after Little Rock and 160 years after emancipation. I saw in those faces that we may still be fighting against racism and defending the existence of the LGBTQ community 160 years from now – unless we take the bold step that every generation seems to stop short of taking.
The enormous wealth and sphere of influence of Christian nationalism is intimidating enough, but it is the weaponization of Christianity that gives the movement its power. I do not believe we can achieve any semblance of lasting equality and justice for Black and LGBTQ lives until we end the weaponization of religion. To do this, I believe we must first confront the mother of all inconvenient truths:
Faith is not fact.
IV. Embracing Uncertainty
It may be only four words, but faith is not fact represents four hundred years or so of scientific discoveries that culminated in one of humanity’s crowning achievements, the scientific method. It is a testament to human curiosity, the force that drives us to question, explore, and learn about ourselves, our world, and the universe. It is also a testament to our insatiable search for truth.
Acknowledging faith is not fact recognizes that the core tenets of religious doctrine, as with any supernatural speculation, are unproven and unprovable. It does not claim that any religion is false, for we can no more prove that God does not exist than we can that God does exist. It does not diminish an individual’s religious freedom, it preserves it by ensuring that no religion or supernatural claim can be used to dehumanize and oppress others, including other religions.
It is in our nature, after all, to be curious about the origins and meaning of life, the great mysteries of the universe. But no one can say with any certainty, for example, what happens after death. It seems we have enabled the weaponization of religion through our collective inability to get comfortable with uncertainty.
We live in a world that does not give up its secrets easily. The one thing we do not have is certainty.
It is that uncertainty and fear about such fundamental aspects of life and death that cause many people to seek comfort in religion. The fear of uncertainty is so unsettling to some that they choose to believe religion holds the answers to all the great mysteries of our existence. Rather than inspiring curiosity, fear too often closes the mind.
People may hold deeply held beliefs that they consider their own truth, which is of course a subjective truth. Objective truths require facts, however, which in turn rely on evidence from hypotheses that can be tested through measurements and observations that are repeatable and can be verified independently. We call this the scientific method.
Regardless of whether hypotheses about the supernatural originate from religious doctrine or not, the scientific method gives us a powerful framework to evaluate those hypotheses. Since we can’t conceive of any way to repeatably test and independently verify the existence of a supernatural deity, much less the traits and commands issued by that deity, it is irresponsible and dangerous to claim any religious doctrine is objectively true or based on facts.
It can be discomforting and sometimes terrifying when something we thought was a certainty is suddenly shown to be uncertain or false. But if we can overcome our fears, the scientific method allows us to embrace uncertainty rather than flee from it.
Now more than ever, we must provide future generations with the tools they need to make the most informed decisions about the many crises we face on our planet. We keep finding ourselves debating the most critical issues of our time with those who justify their arguments in religious terms: climate crisis, reproductive justice, voter suppression, anti-trans legislation, LGBTQ rights, stolen elections and insurrection, vaccines and masks, and even gun control.
Like so many others in my generation, I was inspired by the Cosmos series and accompanying book of that name by Dr. Carl Sagan and his wife, Ann Druyan. Cosmos was an affirmation of the sheer wonderment and almost obsessive curiosity many of us felt to understand the universe and our place in it. Unfortunately, it seems these words from Sagan ring truer than ever,
“You can’t convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it’s based on a deep-seated need to believe.”
If I could have future generations read only one book that addresses science and religion, it would be Sagan’s, the Varieties of Scientific Experience – A Personal View of the Search for God. Sagan defined superstition as belief without evidence. If we’ve learned anything from the history of the church, it’s that superstition is not easily overcome.
It is a tribute to our founders, in fact, that they recognized the dangers of governments that allowed theocratic rule or gave power to a national religion. They knew all too well the endless conflicts in Europe and here in the colonies that inevitably occur if religions are permitted to enforce their unproven supernatural edicts on the rest of the population.
The intentionality of our founders cannot be overstated, as evidenced by the first amendment and the barriers they placed throughout the constitution to prevent religious influence over any branch of government. Checks and balances were enshrined in the three branches of government to ensure objective decision-making that would hold up to scrutiny.
Many of the founders already recognized the value in applying scientific principles to matters of government. As Andrew A. Rosenberg, et al., (Union of Concerned Scientists) points out in Reinvigorating the Role of Science in Democracy, John Adams spoke of the ‘science of government,’
“Concepts such as transparency, a rigorous examination of ideas, review and critique by technically qualified peers, free speech and open exchange, and protection against retaliation for one’s beliefs (or findings) are central to the health of both science and democratic government.”
It is not just that the founders went to great lengths to separate church and state and embrace the scientific method, but the reason they did so. The scientific method gives us the tools we need to make evidence-based decisions and reject arguments that have no basis in fact. It allows us to state unequivocally that religious beliefs, like any supernatural conjecture, can neither be proven nor disproven.
Acknowledging that faith is not fact does not stop us from our personal beliefs or appreciating the wisdom and splendor of the stories of our faith. They often carry with them the traditions and convictions of our ancestors.
But while religious doctrine may inform our character, it is certainly not necessary for human morality. Quite to the contrary, religion played a key role in countless examples of man’s inhumanity to man practiced on a global scale. The essential elements of morality are the result of societal evolution and natural selection. Morality today often exists in spite of religion rather than because of it.
I have found no better inspiration than King’s vision of the Beloved Community, a vision his wife Coretta Scott King put into service through the King Center she founded in 1968, which is now led by their youngest daughter, Dr. Bernice King. The Community that King envisioned would exist in a World House, where “Our loyalties must transcend our race, our tribe, our class, and our nation.”
King wanted to hold America accountable for its hypocrisy, not only in its institutionalized racism, but its abuse and weaponization of religion. In a sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta around the 4th of July, 1965, King spoke again of his dream,
“The first saying we notice in this dream is an amazing universalism. It doesn’t say, ‘some men’; it says ‘all men.’ It doesn’t say ‘all white men’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes black men. It does not say ‘all Gentiles’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes Jews. It doesn’t say ‘all Protestants’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes Catholics. It doesn’t even say ‘all theists and believers’; it says ‘all men,’ which includes humanists and agnostics.”
King preached the social gospel and embodied our constitutional ideals in his commitment to social justice. And of all the barriers he encountered, King made it clear that the greatest threat to Black freedom was not white supremacist ideology, but in the “white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.”
In King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he writes,
“I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.”
“I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice;”
King also expressed his disillusionment with the silence and inaction of white Christian churches,
“Let me take note of my other major disappointment. I have been so greatly disappointed with the white church and its leadership.”
“In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard many ministers say: ‘Those are social issues, with which the gospel has no real concern.’”
We are of course still at liberty to have religious beliefs – as long as those beliefs are not weaponized. That liberty ends when it is used to dehumanize and persecute others and to destabilize our government institutions. Unfortunately, that is exactly what is happening today.
V. New Priorities and a Call to Action
The GOP has focused the attention of its top political leaders, not to mention the bulk of its war chest, on trans kids and Black identities for a reason. That reason has nothing to do with confronting America’s gravest threats and the crises we face at home and abroad. The reason is this:
The GOP needs to energize its predominantly white, Christian voting base. Trans kids and Black identities are the easiest groups to dehumanize and vilify with propaganda and fuel the fear and rage that drives white Christian voters to the polls.
If it is lasting equality and justice we desire, I believe we must collectively confront the weaponization of religion, acknowledge faith is not fact, and enshrine the scientific method in our practice of government.
It may seem impossible, and I won’t argue that the outcome is uncertain. But I do have faith and I believe there is a path.
It is a path well worn by those who marched and sacrificed for the Black Freedom Movement. It is a path that wound its way through black churches and supportive white churches. It is a path that continued on despite the deadly bombings of those churches and the assassination of their leaders.
The path to ending the weaponization of religion and dismantling systems of injustice will reach an impasse if we do not have the support of those churches today. White supremacists have been emboldened by conservative churches and a GOP that now embraces Christian nationalism. We can expect more violence.
It is difficult to hold onto a dream. As Dr. King shared in a 1967 interview, in some ways his “dream had turned into a nightmare,” and “some of the old optimism was a little superficial, and now it must be tempered with a solid realism.”
That’s where we are today. Our kids’ lives depend on every inclusive church using the power of their platform to counter Christian nationalism. There’s only one way out of this nightmare, and it’s to keep marching down that path, but with a solid realism.
About the author: Peter Tchoryk is an engineer and a dad who discovered he had a lot to learn from his kids. He is committed to making this world safer for LGBTQ and Black communities, people of color, and all those persecuted for trying to live authentically. Please check in with us at www.FaithIsNotFact.com for updates and resources or contact the author directly.
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