Embarking on an expiration into the intricate tapestry of religious trauma. This article delves
into the struggles faced by the LGBTQ community. Beyond statistics, it unveils a
personal narrative, shedding light on the intersection of religious and political challenges. Despite
impacting over seven percent of the US population, LGBTQ issues in the context of
religious trauma remain understudied. These stories navigate the complex landscape of personal and political
battles unfolding against a backdrop of legislative changes and societal ships. Join us in
unraveling the complexities of this deeply woven narrative into how hate and intolerance in the
name of religion brings suffer into so many. This story is from NBC News
by Spencer McNaughton on January twenty eighth, twenty twenty four. It's good to
see that this is even being recognized as an issue, because if you go
through and read some of the things that these people talk about and the experiences
of you know, you talk about in the worst manifications, it's basically mind
rate just being this religious trauma syndrome when you try to hide who you are
and conceal your identity, you know, you hide other things. And I
remember one in particular said that I would pray for hours NonStop nothing worked.
It was terrifying. And when you think about it, you know that there's
been in recent years even more so, a drive to isolate, to put
people in a worse situation and without support. Now, one thing the article
said that meant brought up that I just found absolutely amazingly terrible. It's a
guy you guys might have heard of, called Mike Johnson. He called same
sex marriage a dark harbinger of chaos and suggested it could bring lead to people
marrying their pets. Now, this is the same guy who has a quote
covenant marriage. Yes, and his son. He and his son are the
ones that are each other's watch out to make sure they're not watching porn on
the internet. Ye. Yes. And what's really concerned me when I heard
this part about marrying their pets. It's such a disconnect that I couldn't help
but think I'm a little concerned about his pets. And I'm glad I'm not
one of them, because I mean, seriously, it takes a very huge
leap to make that kind of jump there's such a disconnect from reality. But
it does perfectly typify a lot of the things that this article is talking about
about the adversarial nature in which so many people deal with. I remember I
one of them talked about how one of the worst things was realizing that people
chose their ancient myths over their own flesh and blood. But one thing I
did find that one of the people the therapists made, instead of outsourcing all
that care to God, I teach him how to be self reflective and how
to regulate their feelings from their own perspective rather than from the Bibles. And
then one of the people said, what you to be my life is a
trial and then I die and go to hell. Can change to my life
as an adventure and a journey, And you know, that's That's really what
I'm hopeful that over time, as acceptance does change and is an acceptance of
the LGBTQ community has changed and is beginning to change in most areas of Christianity,
I'm really hoping that we see people like Mike Johnson who are fixated on
people and pets, and people who care about people and helping them, not
condemning them and making them another and that's it. Hey, I don't get
how they how they do these how do they get to that slope, slippery
slope of marrying pets. You know, there was a cartoon and adult swim
and I want to I shouldn't have said that, but there was a car
a cartoon. It was that years ago, and one of the main characters
married a can of paint, you know, just a there's a mockery of
this slippery soap idea. You know, I always thought that was ridiculous.
It just reminds me what you're saying there of that kind of cartoonish parody where
the man thinks the end of the world is covering so marys himself. It's
really ridiculous, it really is. It's hard for me to empathize or to
understand this problem. I didn't have, you know, I'm as cis,
white male, so I'm missing out on that end of it. I didn't
have any religious trauma, so it's again I'm drawing a blank. So it's
really hard for me to empathize fully and to understand where everybody's coming from.
Believe me, I fully want to understand. I totally champion these people as
much as I can. And the one thing that I can truly be thankful
of in this article, this is from NBC News. This is like major
mainstream news talking about this issue, and that's freaking amazing. This is something
we wouldn't have seen ten years ago, and I think that's a really good
sign about how far that we have come as a society that we can start
talking about these things in the ma stream media. So I don't know why
it took so long. I know it rubs people my age the wrong way.
It makes me wonder if, like I know, a lot of news
programs have aging demographics, and are they just staying away from the topic because
they're going to hurt their ratings. I don't know, but I think it's
wonderful and amazing that NBC News brought this up to show what these people,
what this community has that sounded really bad, what this community is going through,
and the pain and the suffering that these bad politics and this bad religious
thought has caused them. Phoebe, I don't know how I feel about this
article because, on the one hand, it talks about very disturbing pranktic and
that is turning around to somebody and saying who you are is wrong. Who
you are must chain. But then it goes on to talk about what has
been disparagingly labeled the Insurance Line Item Reference Manual, the DSM. I understand
why it goes and talks about the DSM, But the DSM has its own
issues. DSM used to pathologize sexual orientation, for example, it used to
pathologize being trans in a negative way. DSM used to have recommendations for trans
people as electroconvulsive therapy. So the DSM has a way to go to actually
improve itself, and the way change the DSM is bonkers. You have to
submit proposally, has to go to a committee, that there has to go
to a subcommittee, that there has to go to an expert advice to go
back to the subcommittee. And then it takes decades to change the DSM,
and the DSM gets fatter and fatter and fatter. And I don't just want
this issue to be another insurance billable item. I want it not to exist.
It is something in the third millennium since we've been counting in the third
decade, in the fifth year of that decade, that should not exist.
We should be eradicating this from existence. It's like measles. We can eradicate
it. There is no need in this day and age for anybody to not
be comfortable in their own skin for things that they have no control over because
of frankly, mythology and make believe. I'm not usually that disparaging of religion
on here, but in this case it's make believe, and it is bigotry
that uses make believe to further bigotry. It talks about a scripture being quoted
here. If you can't point to the scripture that backs up what they say,
because it doesn't exist. The scripture doesn't turn around and say that trans
people should be excised of their transmits. It just does not say that anywhere.
It does not say anywhere the sexual orientation in it of itself is a
sin. And any quotes that are made up are just that made up.
They're synthesized, and they are thrown down the throats of people who lack the
critical thinking of the person standing in a pulpit, standing at the end of
a mosque, standing in a synagogue, or whatever religious building it needs.
Because this is not just confined to Christianity here. I am somebody who used
to work as a social work, and I am aware through my work as
a social worker that there was an Islamic exorcism that took place on a teenager
to excise him of the demon that had possessed his sexual orientation because he refused
to participate in an arranged marriage. This is the level of nonsense that we
are dealing with here in this day and age, we still have exorcisms going
on where people believe that you can exorcise the gayaway, exorcise the trends away,
exorcise the bisexuality away, and so kind of a world have we evolved
into. Just like smallpox, this can be eradicated and it's one thing that
we all need to do show a bit of humanity towards other people. I
mean, I'm going to teckt this from the angle of them talking about just
the religious trauma. So a lot of people think about religious trauma that it
only comes from like Catholic priests or deconversion camps. So you think about it,
you think about growing up in an ultra religious home where you're showing like
shun for your identity, stuff like that. In reality, religious trauma doesn't
need an outside force once you've already been indoctrinated. Like just just like the
guy in this article says, imagine praying every day to not be yourself.
A lot of trauma from religion is self inflicted, and we don't talk enough
about that at all. But like when I look at the LGBTQ community,
I see a lot of unfortunate parallels with the black community. One glaring example
is how religious indoctrination gives us a lifetime of suffering because we're trying to adhere
to a doctrine that is antithetical to us. I think it's oxymoronic for either
community to believe in the deity or religion that opposes their very existence, even
if not directly right. So if the doctrine can be misinterpreted and utilized to
justify the mistreatment of you, you should not take that as the perfect word
of an all loving God. That doesn't make sense, that doesn't compute.
So I mean, like, just looking at this year, like the last
few years, it's original sin. Yeah, I mean, but like especially
within the last decade, I'll say it's been probably extremely triggering for the lg
LGBTQ community, but more terrifying because we continue to see these dishonest actors in
the government demonize this community for political points. Literally, that's the only reason.
And they're not just using rhetoric anymore. Now they're weaponizing the government,
which I keep hearing, especially this year, weaponizing the government. No,
this is actually weaponizing the government, and they're using collective punishment with legislation.
Legislation, I can never say that word. They're in acting collective punishment on
people that did nothing more than exists. Again, as a black man,
I can see the parallels, and I can I can't even imagine, like
what the last decade must have stirred up, like every negative emotion possible for
the one in five Americans according to this article that are suffering from religious trauma.
Those emotions they have to be even more intense now if they were already
there, because you're already a doctrinated you're trying to fight this demon and now
you're being having it thrown in your face every time you turn on the TV.
And all I can say is, really stay strong, and if you
need to talk to somebody, please do so. Don't worry about to DSM
five. There are different forms of therapy. There are people that you can
talk to please reach out to somebody if you are not taking this last decade
well, so I know a lot of people aren't. One thing that blatant
you mentioned was religious trauma in a general sense, and that is a very
real thing, because the first step is that indoctrination that a person is useless,
that you are utter trash without your God. You deserve whatever you get,
however bad it is because you're a sinner. You're a bad person for
that. And that indoctrination, piled upon years of reinforcement, is something that
I'm glad that people are at least starting to recognize is an actual thing,
because I know that on the other side they dismiss this as just a bunch
of people who want to whine and cry, and well they win when they
just need to find God. Well, you know what I thought, I
found him. What I have to say I shouldn't say here, so I'll
just leave it at that. But the truth is is that that God is
in between the ears of each and every one of us who ever believed in
a God. And that's where that eternalized thing that you brought up, Because
we are our own worst enemy time and time again with this and when we
talk about religious trauma. It is a monstrous thing. And go ahead,
go ahead, go ahead, Yes, yeah, I was an abrupt I'm
so sorry man. I no, no, I get it to Yes,
it is. It is a difficult topic. And one of the most horrible
things that I think that this brings up is that and many of you have
mentioned it, in the last decade, it's gotten worse, and it's gotten
worse because of the political agenda that's been going on. That's like targeting this
minority group of people that are just being used for political purposes. And and
it's and they it's not like they're going and attacking somebody that has the ability
to fight back on an equal level, because they're not. They're just being
bullies and bigots and using these people in a way that is harming them.
It is literally harming them. Also they can get more votes at the bottom
at the in the ballot box. To me, it's it's really disgusting.
And that's that's what I think is one of the worst things that I see
happening here here, is that this poor group of people is being used in
such a way that's causing such long term harm. It's really really bad.
Phoebe. I know you're Icee over there fuming. So I think that this
article does and I understand why it does it, but the article gives an
overarching impression the LGBT community is a victim, to always be a victim,
to always be that punching back, to always be attacked. Fuck that,
absolutely fuck that. I am here as a member of multiple minorities. I'm
an immigrant, I'm Jewish, I'm bisexual or pan sexual, wherever you wish
to differentiate between those. And I'm a trans woman and I have a disability.
And fuck am I gonna sit around with some heteronormative twacked dictating to me
that I'm worthless because his fucked up vision of the world means that I'm lesser
than he is, and he can go and shove it right up his ass.
I am no victim of anybody. I dictator of my life, and
my life is a success yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and every single
LGBT person on this planet has the ability to be a success yesterday, today,
tomorrow and forever. And fuck anybody who says that you cannot be simply
because you are LGBT, go shove fat up your pulpit. Yeah, a
little dog still has a bite. All I'm going to say is hell yeah,
I got nothing to it. Hell you, That's all I got.
Yeah. I don't think there is much to add to that'll happen too hard.
You know, we want to hear what you have to think about this.
Email us at nonprofits at atheisttypeoncommunity dot org. Karen, thank you for the tie