“This trans crap is going too far! My daughter does not need some dude still possessing a male organ walking into her bathroom, but because he says he is a woman it’s ok? He is a pervert and sick in the head! And most likely, he is a pedophile!”

“With all of what is going on (trans community), how are we supposed to accept blatant fantasies that some perverted sex freaks came up with as truth, when we know it is the enemy (Satan) moving the masses, and making it almost illegal to speak Christianity in any public setting, talking about rights!”

A friend of mine posted a suggestion (in jest) to paint the Gateway Arch in St. Louis as a rainbow to push the Bud Light rebels out of Missouri. The opening quotes are pulled from “D. Wood’s” opening response on that thread. The entire Bud Light debacle began when Anheuser-Busch announced a partnership with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney. While D. Wood’s comments aren’t as physically extreme as Kid Rock’s redneck rifle and “fuck Bud Light” tantrum, he does share the worst reasoning to justify his transphobia: concern for his daughter in a bathroom.

The argument about daughters in bathrooms with people who are transgender is overplayed. It’s a logical fallacy – it’s unrealistic – and it ignores a significant finding: According to New Hope, an organization established to help survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, “approximately 2/3 of all sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows.” Couple this with a UCLA Williams Institute finding that “0.7 percent of all respondents identified as transgender” (p. 3), per a 2022 study assessing “LGBTQ People on Sex Offender Registries”. A reasonable conclusion would certainly indicate it’s unlikely your daughter would be assaulted by a stranger, who identified as transgender, in a public restroom.

But if that’s not enough, the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) houses statistics related to perpetrators of sexual violence toward children: “7 percent are strangers. 59 percent are acquaintances. 34 percent are family members. 93 percent are known to the victim.” RAINN also has data for where sexual violence against children generally occurs:

To reiterate – it is extremely unlikely your daughter (or child in general) will be assaulted by an individual who (1) is a stranger, (2) identifies as transgender, and (3) is in a public restroom. Unfortunately, the idea of people who are trans assaulting your daughter in a bathroom was enough to trigger a wave of anti-Trans legislation across the country. Bills like Missouri’s HB 2210 (from 2022) have sprouted up like weeds. Alongside attempts to/the passage of bills that criminalize hormone therapy, sex reassignment surgeries, “coercing a child” to be transgender – we find bans on drag performances and books – and movements to even defund public libraries along the way.

Perhaps more troubling though is the recent effort of Missouri Attorney General, Andrew Bailey, whose office established a “tip line” to report a “complaint or concern about gender transition intervention.”

It’s a wild time to be alive – but let’s take a step back to D. Wood – the outraged Facebook user. His initial comment led with him declaring: “I have no problem with anyone who wants to be gay or a cat or whatever.”

D. Wood lamented it didn’t need to be shouted “from the rooftops” or “shoved” down people’s throats, contesting you don’t see a “Straight Pride March.” Honestly, D. Wood is all over the place – but let me get real with you: People who identify as Trans, or any other part of the LGBTQ community, are entitled to the freedom to exist openly and honestly, without religious-based legislation seeking to criminalize or erase them.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), in her famously “tired of the separation of Church and State” tirade declared: “The Church is supposed to direct the government!”

No. It’s not. The First Amendment’s Establishment Clause forbids the government from declaring a national religion – therefore, negating this idea that the church should govern or that religion should be the basis for government. Per the Cornell Law School, in 1947: “Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black famously stated in Everson v. Board of Education that ‘[t]he First Amendment has erected a wall between church and state’.”

That’s a wall that should stand – because religiously-decided legislation is discriminatory by nature. In this case – religion is an oft-cited reason given in support of anti-Trans legislation. Previously – religion was used to torture (electroshock, conversion therapy, etc.) members of the LGBTQ community. Religion has been used to deny same-sex couples rights like marriage (and as a byproduct, end-of-life decision making) and adoption. Religion has been directly responsible for the death of countless youths who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender – as was the case for Bobby Griffith in 1983. Religion has been used to deny people who are LGBTQ baptism and communion – religion itself.

It’s odd to bully from the pulpit of “Jesus is love” and to try to deny access to God. But to extend that – and to attempt erasure or to challenge treatments or legality of free citizens of the United States? Let’s be clear: People who are transgender – in fact, all members of the LGBTQ community – are tax-paying citizens and are guaranteed freedom under the United States Constitution.

And before you attempt to legislate/advocate legislation from The Bible and your houses of worship – you might take a moment to reflect on the abuses that take place before God. Just this month – on April 6, 2023 – Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown detailed the findings of a four-year investigation: Baltimore’s Catholic Church sexually abused more than 600 children in the span of 60 years.

This isn’t a new or isolated story, though. Reports of abuse by clergy in churches have been known for decades. In an appearance on Saturday Night Live on October 3, 1992, singer Sinead O’Connor infamously sparked outrage. In protest toward the Catholic Church’s continued silencing of sexual assault victims, O’Connor sang a modified, a capella rendition of Bob Marley’s “War.” At the end, she held up a picture of Pope John Paul II as she sang the word “evil.” She tore the photo, threw it toward the camera, and called on viewers to “fight the real enemy!”

Pope John Paul II apologized for abuse by the Roman Catholic Church in 2001.

Yet, despite the rampant abuse, I can’t recall a furious attempt to legislate churches – or hold offending clergy criminally liable for abuse. We know it happens – and do nothing. The Church continues to operate as normal as justice departments seek ways to hold offenders accountable. If only we could act to solve actual, documented abuses in the same way we act to solve imagined abuses.

It’s rather remarkable – especially when you consider the Church has more freedom and rights than a tax-paying citizen who identifies as transgender. I wonder what D. Wood would think about this. But perhaps I gave him plenty to consider with my existing, direct response:

“I love how in this argument it’s always about daughters in bathrooms. These are the same daughters who can be raped and molested – impregnated – by a heterosexual predator – and now be forced to have his baby. Meanwhile, the holy rollers keep taking their kids to church, to be with God, yet we know for sure that countless abuses have been committed by priests in church. But we’re not legislating that (or even prosecuting clergy)… we’re legislating on the “what if the person who’s transgender is a predator in the bathroom with my daughter?”

“The daughter’s peeing in peace while the son is being raped by a man of the cloth. But’s that okay they’ll both be dead in tomorrow’s school shooting.”

-Bobby