When “Identity” Became Synonymous With “Trans”:

  A Misreading That Reveals a Bigger Linguistic (and Cultural) Shift 

While watching a YouTube critique of a message purported to be directly from God about who killed Charlie Kirk, it caught my attention immediately when the reviewer automatically interpreted the word identity in the original speaker’s sentence as referring only to trans‑identity. The original line was simply,

“I love him and those like him who are going through similar struggles with their identity.”

Clearly not the main point of the critique, and  although I agree with the overall criticism or "take-down" of the original video’s claims, the reviewer was wrong to assume that identity automatically equals trans. I admit the possibility that Troy, in his fake prophecy regarding who killed Charlie Kirk, was probably conflating the accused and his alleged trans lover, but he didn't claim the killer was trans.  Troy said the killer struggled with his identity. This is known as semantic narrowing, and in this particular case is indicative of a culture war that has been brewing for the past fifteen years or so.  

There are a myriad of ways one could struggle with identity, that doesn't mean trans. If the official story is true, the shooter was potentially a gay kid in Mormon Utah. Identity refers to the overall sense of self, not specifically gender identity.  Reports say the accused is dating a trans furry woman in Utah! His roommate is supposedly his lover, in other words. They could be married for all I know. 
Is the accused killer gay or is he straight? Is his lover a boy or a girl? Is a trans girl a real girl?  I would be more interested in knowing how he defines hate?  Nevertheless, maybe he struggled with how he saw himself so he became an assassin. 

Why the Misreading Matters

• Clarity of communication – When identity is automatically read  or heard as trans, speakers who mean 'personal struggles,'  'cultural background,' or 'professional role' risk being misunderstood.
• Polarization – The shortcut can turn a neutral statement into a flashpoint, especially in comment sections where nuance is scarce.
• Erasure of other identities – Reducing the term to one facet marginalizes the many ways people experience and define themselves.

It's Anecdotal but... 

Nobody in the whole wide world thought identity meant trans thirty years ago. Look how far we've come. Not only were trans not a threat when I was in high school, the concept didn't even exist in our psyche. We certainly didn't have furry.  An identity crisis didn't mean unsure about gender or sex or species .  Imagine that! 

I never saw any trans being bullied because I never knew it was a thing. Sure SNL made fun of people that were confused about Pat's gender, Pat didn't seem to mind. Sure Hollywood thought black men pretending to be women was funny, but the men didn't think they were women. Or a father pretending to be an old woman housekeeper to be with his kids after a divorce. (I think the point was "love will prevail" or something not "respect men that feel like old housekeepers"—Even if you catch them peeing standing up). Just didn't seem to be a big problem. 

 If I saw a man pretending to be a woman go into a female bathroom, I might worry he might be a threat. But they would probably be fine if they just never do anything creepy. If they use the toilet and leave no one would ever know. I promise you I have never once examined any dude in a bathroom and found them wanting, so to speak. Put a 1 in the comments if you have, The 1's are the ones I will hopefully avoid! 

My whole damn life, everyone seemed to know their own gender and everyone else seemed to believe them. Sure kids made fun of each other for their clothes or having unpopular hobbies.  Perhaps even about being stupid, smelly, short, ugly...Stuff like that. I don't remember a single time a kid was upset for being misgendered. Being misgendered was when a kid thought a guy was a girl because their hair was too long or something stereo-typically girl like or vice versa, Then they would apologize. 
It wasn't about calling out the fakes after them demanding we respect that they tell us they are fakes all the time. 

 As far as I actually know 90% of every kid I actually knew were actually the opposite sex from what I thought they were, They must have been good at pretending. We didn't have a word like trans — so we would know that it is fake while having to pretend it is real.  
 We also didn't have men in girl sports because we didn't have girl sports. We had girls in sports, and they sucked, but we put up with it.  They didn't seem to know they sucked, or they were having fun and didn't care. No I am just kidding there was softball­ —boys didn't play that.

Straight Pride- Straight Up Satire

A Straight Pride Parade held in Boston on August 31st, 2019 by an promotion calling itself Super Happy Fun America sparked controversy and protests. The most semi-coherent and widely spouted argument against the event is that straight people are not marginalized or oppressed so they "do not need a parade". I do not know when it became necessary to be oppressed to celebrate anything or have a parade. I know very little about the promotion or what is really in the founders hearts and minds but I would easily concede it could meet the definition of a "troll" event, in the online vernacular. More importantly and to the point though, it is clearly satirical.

Satire- trenchant wit, irony or sarcasm used to expose and discredit vice or folly. (Merriam-Webster)

One may argue it is mean to make light of the struggle certain people have experienced for being abnormal, which is a completely reasonable response. However, I think the "folly" this event exposes is the completely unreasonable response it actually receives.  First we have a president of a college, Lee Pelton, Calling it "a perversion". Is the irony lost?  What is it "perverting"?  The meaning and purpose of a parade?  Free Speech?  Clearly it is not perverting the design and purpose for sex.  In order to argue against people celebrating something so mundane in fact, people seem to have to impute the motive of hate to everyone involved.  I saw several live-streams where protestors take to calling everyone there for the parade a "Nazi", even people just there to report.  Then they start chanting, "Hate speech is not free speech", and "Boston hates you." All this in the name of "tolerance and diversity".    There is no shortage of clear examples of this complete and utter "folly" in America and the rest of the world today.  Speech is Speech .  Expression is Expression. There is good reason these should remain free.

HOW TO COMFORT?

This topic has been somewhat on the back burner. When I started, Offend Me With Your Love, I was thinking about what it means to show love. Undoubtedly, I had in mind the ridiculous politically correct nonsense about everyone having a right not to be offended. Clearly, the goal is not to be offensive for the sake of being offensive. The goal is in some sense to take back what it really means to love from the narrow explanations. Of course, the inverse is true as well. What really constitutes hate? Both these terms either are applied too loosely or are too narrowly defined. The false, logically inconsistent, message says, “If it agrees with me or sounds nice it is love, if it disagrees with me or sounds harsh it is hate.”
Of course, Offend Me With Your Love came out of a much more personal place as well. I was going through the darkest time of my life and realized nobody loved me, at least not in a way I could really understand. I had an overwhelming desire to cut everyone out of my life and literally disappear myself permanently. The very few people in my life that cared about me would not say anything because they were afraid of offending me. This only reinforced the belief and the message, “go quietly; nobody cares.”
Who am I to say if they did the right thing or not? I am still here. I doubt ignoring a problem in the hopes that it goes away is a good general rule to live by. It may absolutely be the right answer to say nothing at times. I know I am a sinner and especially need tough love sometimes, although that is obviously not the answer in every situation either.  Paul writes,

“Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, KJV).

The word Trouble is θλῖψις (Transliteration: thlipsis) from <G2346> (thlibo); pressure (literal or figurative) :- afflicted (-tion), anguish, burdened, persecution, tribulation, trouble.¹
There is So Much Trouble in the World. It would be great to know how to give comfort. Yet we have to be honest with ourselves as believers in Y’shua *(JESUS). When non-believers look at the church and its message, they are confused. We meddle in the affairs of others outside the church without really setting our own household in order. Obviously, we should start at the household of God. How are we to comfort each other?
In upcoming posts, I will talk about some specific situations and questions I have come to in my everyday life and through reading other’s blogs. In the meantime, check out the very interesting site Net-burst.Net [current] [Archive] for many articles of encouragement on a wide range of topics.

1 James Strong, Strong's Talking Greek & Hebrew Dictionary, (Austin, TX: WORDsearch Corp., 2007), WORDsearch CROSS e-book, Under: "2347".

Is Islam Really Such a Threat?

Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington by Paul Sperry
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I appreciate the investigative journaling on the topic of the real threat by Islamic ideologies. However, it was extremely tedious for me to read. I started the book in January and did not finish this one until basically July. I think I read seven other books and parts of two others in-between starting and finishing this one. I was never very excited to read it, it was more like a duty to finish because I started it.
I do not believe the rhetoric regarding Islam being merely a religion of peace exploited by a small minority of extremists. I do not believe, we as secular Americans, have an adequate grasp on what Islam actually is. I believe it is important to look deeper. Of course we do not want to believe the threat is widespread, in fact many entirely dismiss the threat coming out of the Islamic world. I personally would love to be a peace-loving hippie saying with all the ardor I could muster, "why can't we all just get along?" The best part of the book was the afterword, regarding the "death-loving jihadists and their supporters and facilitators" being the "perfect enemy, for the following ten reasons":

NO.1 Patience
No.2 Language Barrier
No.3 It is a family enterprise in addition to a Muslim enterprise
No.4 Different Calendar
No.5 Aliases (including differences because of the language barrier)
No.6 Freedom of Religion (our own being exploited)
No.7 Typically Muslims are not easy to bribe
No.8 Tax-Exempt Terrorism (Our own Tax laws exploited)
No.9 Saudi Protection
No.10 The "Racism" and "Bigotry" Defense*


*(try using this as a Christian in Saudi Arabia see how well that goes over)

On the other hand, as a person leaning toward civil libertarian views, it is very difficult for me to accept some of the proposed solutions offered, also in the afterword:

No.1 Not in my backyard
No.2 Enforce the Oath of Allegiance
No.3 Profile Muslim Travelers
No.4 Audit Muslim Charities and Mosques
No.5 Break off official ties with CAIR
No.6 Expose the Saudi Embassy
No.7 Deny security clearance to Muslim activists
No.8 Offer scholarships in Arabic
No.9 Fight Muslim Activism in Public Schools
No.10 Step up Counterterrorism Training at Quantico

At issue for me is our freedom to verbally express our ideas and express our religion without fear of the government. If we start limiting this for one group in the name of "safety and security" it is not difficult to change the definitions and apply it to another group. Soon enough I could be the target. This is demonstrable in history which is why we have this "freedom" in the first place. Also peace loving hippies have wound up on the terrorist watch-lists in America as well. Obviously there is no easy solution!
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I was thinking free speech and free exercise of religion could be an expression of "loving our enemies". Or just in general about not allowing our ignorance to be our downfall but rather our loving choices. What do you think? On a personal level, what should we do when we feel we are being exploited because of our goodwill?

"Offend ME with Your Love" (one has to start somewhere)

I heard these words come out of my mouth the other day, “Offend ME with Your Love”.  I thought it was somewhat catchy and therefore indicated it would be the title to my next book.  “You have to start somewhere”, I was told, “I guess you started with a title.”  And now I have started a blog.  In the course of things, we will come to find out what exactly is meant by such a phrase.  I suppose I have in mind the “offense” which is the Cross, and generally speaking how the ways of the Lord are not the ways of this world; and the LORD’s ways are not my ways.  So “political correctness” aside I would not mind discussing and challenging some of the common sensibilities of my society in this day and age.

I was joking with some people that one of my “NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS” was to be mad at everyone for no reason.  Of course that would make me doltish.  “What would that accomplish?”  Really though, I do intend to be mindful of things that offend me.  Not so I can focus that attention on the offender,  hopefully with the mind of Christ and the Spirit of the Lord, I can allow myself to ascertain “what is at the heart of the matter” and allow the redemptive, sanctification work of the cross to have it’s way in me. 

For a more practical sounding approach to seeing offense as a "problem of the self" and a list of ways to help to choose not to be offended, check out "How to Choose to Not Be Offended"