Prejudice Is Taught. Prejudice Must Be Fought!
Amaryllis Fox is one of those quiet heroes you’ve probably never heard of and may never hear about again. She worked for a decade as an undercover CIA agent, cultivating relationships with arms merchants and preventing them from selling fissile material to terrorist groups.
She tells part of her story in the Foreign Policy December 3, 2019 podcast “The Art Dealer,” one of a series of “true spy stories.”
“I remember really distinctly hearing the guidance that [CIA headquarters at]
Langley [Virginia] had given us… and they said
‘Just pretend to be yourself.’ And they had not said it with any irony…
but I was… realizing that when I asked myself
‘What would I do if I were really me?’ I did not know the answer;
it had been a while since I had really been me
and the layers upon layers of fiction that come into play
when your friends, your family don’t know what you do for a living,…
It’s a very lonely way to spend your twenties
and it is very easy in those many layers of fiction to lose track
of who you really are underneath.”
The Foreign Policy spies repeatedly reported losing their sense of self through years of pretending to be something other than what they truly were.
In Twenty-first Century America, tens of thousands of Americans of all ages live like spies - pretending to be someone other than their true selves because of the negative consequences of exposing their sexual orientation and identity. And, unhappily this is even more difficult for LGBT young people.
In coming weeks, as the Biden administration rolls back prohibitions on LGBT men and women serving in the military and other forms of discrimination based on sexual identity and orientation, other Americans will tell their stories of “lost selves.” Depending on their denominational history, churches will be forced to take a stand. And, people of faith – most especially those who claim to be “pro-life” - will be forced to choose between facts and science and old prejudices and misunderstandings.
We’ve long known that suicide is the second leading cause of death among American adolescents and LGBT youth seriously contemplate suicide at almost three times the rate of heterosexual youth.
The 2020 National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health, the largest survey of LGBTQ youth ages 13 to 24 ever conducted, tells us:
40% of LGBTQ respondents seriously considered attempting suicide in the twelve months prior to the survey, with more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth having seriously considered suicide.
Nearly 15% of LGBTQ respondents attempted suicide in the previous twelve months.
One in three LGBTQ young people reported that they had been physically threatened or harmed in their lifetime due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.
68% of these young people reported symptoms of generalized anxiety disorder in the previous two weeks, including more than three-in-four transgender and nonbinary youth.
More than 55% of LGBTQ youth reported symptoms of major depressive disorder in the previous two weeks.
48% of LGBTQ youth reported engaging in self-harm in the previous twelve months, including over 60% of transgender and nonbinary youth.
29% reported homelessness, having been kicked out, or run away.
46% reported wanting psychological/emotional counseling from a mental health professional but were unable to receive it.
Six out of ten LGBTQ youth said that someone had attempted to convince them to change their sexual orientation or gender identity; 35% of those were parents; 13% were religious leaders.
10% reported undergoing “conversion therapy” – now outlawed in many states and rejected by mental health professional associations; 78% reported it occurred when they were under age 18.
One in three LGBTQ reported that they had been physically threatened or harmed in their lifetime due to their sexual identity.
In addition, repeated surveys, including a January 2019 report from the Prison Policy Initiative indicate that youth of color – particularly Black youth – are at an increased risk of criminalization and experience disproportionately higher rates of homelessness. Troublingly, the portion that identify as LGBT and/or gender nonconforming is even higher for girls in the juvenile justice system - 40%.
In the midst of a pandemic that seems to have no horizon because the coronavirus continues to mutate and as the nation recovers from the hangover of a second impeachment trial, issues of sexual orientations and identities and prejudices – in the military, in schools, on sports teams and in locker rooms – will again come to the fore.
As one of his first acts in office, President Biden signed an executive order lifting the previous administration’s ban on transgender people serving in the military. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley issued a statement calling the president’s action “the right thing to do. It is also the smart thing to do.” Approximately 15,000 transgender service members are protecting America’s freedom today.
But wait, some religious leaders – “culture warriors” with “Rev.” in front of their names - won’t let the issues of sexual orientation and identity die.
My brother Michael remembers two incidents that convinced him that, as a general rule, too many “church leaders” have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to sex, gender and identity and spout off out of pure ignorance.
In seventh grade, Johnny Gray questioned Sister Mary Paraclete, “Sister, I was just thinking: if everybody in the world came from Adam and Eve, that would mean that Cain and Abel had sex with their own sisters?” She responded, “Shut up and don’t ask any more questions.”
When, one afternoon, my mother asked what he had learned that day at Christopher Columbus High School, he responded: “Brother Hugh said that if a woman is nursing, she can’t get pregnant.” Mom’s response: “How do you think you got here?”
Perhaps, however, some religious leaders might learn before they “bishopicate” or “theologianicate.” [Yes, we just made up those words.] Of course, it might mean that some bishopicators and theologianicators might have to learn from [God forbid] women.
What might happen if bishops and culture warriors listened to Kate Thomas, Ph.D., co-director of clinical services at The Sex and Gender Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital, in an article she and others from the Clinic wrote for The Baltimore Sun in early 2019 concerning “the lack of understanding of what constitutes our sex/gender”:
Indeed, many confuse the words themselves as well as their meanings. Our sex/gender is made up of chromosomal and hormonal factors that dictate our anatomical sex as well as our brain gender identity. This is not a clear-cut process, and there are many potential variations. For instance, it is known that genital differentiation occurs at a different time in embryological life than brain differentiation, thus setting the stage for differences in what our genitals tell us and what our brains tell us about who we are. Assuming determinate for establishing “biological” sex defies scientific understanding…
The medical community has moved forward. Currently all major medical and psychological organizations accept that being transgender is merely a human variant, and they have established humane and scientifically based treatment with proven effectiveness…
Though the science has improved, we still do not know everything we need to know about gender. What we do know is that feeling your gender is at odds with your assigned birth sex is a very real feeling. It is a variant in the many possibilities that make up humankind.
If some bishopifcators stopped to consider the ole saw that “most of sex is in the brain,” which contains 100 billion neurons and 125 trillion electro-chemical synapses just in the cerebral cortex alone, perhaps they might recognize:
“It’s beginning to seem that the brain is more like a stage for our life to be acted upon than like the director behind a curtain calling shots. Nonetheless, it’s reasonable to assume that all of our thoughts, feelings, intentions and behaviors at least have correlates in electrical and chemical signals in the brain, because there’s not a whit of evidence to suggest otherwise.”
Judith Grise. The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction
That means that our sense-of-self as a sexual work of the Creator is established in the womb and whatever the description we and the world and religious leaders place upon our own or other’s sexual identity and orientation is “merely a human variant.”
Perhaps we might learn from Sister Louisa Derouen, OP, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Peace; in her decades-long ministry, she has served as a companion to about 250 transgender men and women. “Transgender persons are the body of Christ too… Why should the medical experiences of transgender people and their families concern me? That is not my expertise at all. I’m a spiritual direct. Well, here’s why: We are each a unique body-soul creation of God… It has been pointed out that we Catholics would never dream of disrespecting the body of Christ we receive in Communion, but we don’t hesitate to disrespect thee body of Crist in the person before us, especially those whose Christ-like humanity makes us uncomfortable.”
Happily, on February 1, ten U.S. Roman Catholic bishops joined the Tyler Clemente Foundation, named for a gay 18-year-old Rutgers University student who committed suicide after being bullied because of his sexual identity, in issuing a uniquely pastoral statement:
“As we see in the Gospels, Jesus Christ taught love, mercy and welcome for all people, especially for those who felt persecuted or marginalized in any way; and the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that LGBT people are to be treated with ‘respect, compassion and sensitivity.
“All people of goodwill should help, support, and defend LGBT youth – who attempt suicide at much higher rates than their straight counterparts, who are often homeless because of families who reject them, who are rejected, bullied and harassed, and who are the target of violent acts at alarming rates.
“The Catholic Church values the God-given dignity of all human life and we take this opportunity to say to our LGBT friends, especially young people, that we stand with you and oppose any form of violence, bullying or harassment directed at you. Most of all, know that God created you, God loves you and God is on your side.”
“Prejudice is taught” has become a trite cliché. But it’s also true. In some part, prejudice against LGBTQ people – young and old – is taught from pulpits and through heretical catechisms. At the same time, it reflects a denial and absence of science. It’s time for People of Faith to dare to challenge “culture warrior” bigots and condemn their prejudice and hatred.
It’s time for all People of Faith - in the pew and at the altar - to have an honest, science-based discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity. It’s time to end the prejudices that cause LGBTQ boys and girls, men and women to so thoroughly hide their true selves that, like undercover spies, they have spent their lives pretending and lost track of their true selves. We must affirm – to them and to the world - that they “are the body of Christ too.”