Thoughts from San Jose
I spoke Sunday at a delightful Presbyterian church in San Jose, California. I preached and then spoke for an hour about how America has gotten where it is regarding transgender people.
I spoke of E. O. Wilson, the sociobiologist, who said we are the only one of nine tribal species that has come to believe an enemy is necessary for the tribe to survive, and where no natural enemy exists, we create one.
I talked of the three moral standards, and the fact that while secular America works from the standard that says there is no greater moral good than to protect the freedom of the individual, the fundamentalist forms of the desert religions work from the second moral standard, that there is no greater good than to obey the teachings of the gods, as determined by their religious leaders. And in the Middle East, many work from the first moral standard, that there is no greater moral good than to protect the integrity of the tribe.
I then spoke for the first time at any length about study I have been doing recently on the work of Iain McGilchrist, the Scottish psychiatrist, neuroscientist, and philosopher who taught at Oxford. McGilchrist’s groundbreaking work on the hemispheres of the brain has fascinated me since I first read about it in Donald Kalsched’s Trauma and the Soul.
I noted how the last five hundred years have been a time of left-brain domination in the western world which has a created a narrow focus on analysis and categorization, the realm of the left hemisphere of the brain, and very little focus on placing that information in the greater context of life, a right hemisphere function.
In the world we have created, instead of metaphor, we want literal meaning. Instead of awe, we want scientific explanation. Instead of mystery we want certainty. All are left-brain. I explained how fundamentalist and evangelical Christianity have sold their soul to left brain thinking, which is tragic, because Jesus did not teach to the left brain. All of his instruction was to the right brain. He taught in metaphor, not literal meaning. He spoke in awe, not scientific explanation. He spoke of mystery, not certainty.
As a result, conservative Christianity has come to ignore the teachings of Jesus while it turns the Bible into a left brain textbook, to be interpreted literally, as a book of scientific explanation, and through the doctrine of inerrancy, certainty. Additionally, they pay more attention to the writings of Paul, more a left brain writer, than they do to the teachings of Jesus.
That shift is how you arrive at 87 percent of evangelicals believing gender is immutably determined at birth, 67 percent believing we already give too many civil rights to transgender people, and yet only 34 percent knowing someone who is out as a transgender person. Instead of following the teaching of Jesus to love God, neighbor, and self, they have created left brain rules and regulations to reject an issue that is nowhere mentioned in scripture.
I believe the only way to counteract this course of events is through right brain influence, primarily achieved through proximity and narrative. If we are bodily in the presence of another, unless we have a right brain deficiency, we stand a better chance of seeing that person in the context of our shared humanity rather than analyzing and categorizing them as “other.” If we hear one another’s stories, we stay in the right brain, the realm of narrative, subtlety, nuance, mystery and awe. While proximity demands bodily connection, narrative can be done on a mass scale.
Comedic television brought America around on marriage equality, progressively moving through All in the Family, where gay issues were first introduced, to the scripted Ellen show, where a gay character was the protagonist, to Will and Grace, in which gay characters interacting with straight characters was the focus of the show, to Modern Family, in which one of three major storylines was about a gay couple, to today, when people in sitcoms are incidentally gay.
Humans do change our minds, but not unless information comes to us in a non-threatening way. What could be less threatening than comedic narrative coming into our living rooms? That is one of the reasons I signed a life rights deal with a Hollywood production company to do a three season story of my life. In today’s environment, getting that funded will be next to impossible, but if they can get it funded, maybe it can help change the narrative.
When I was speaking in San Jose, as is always the case, I opened the talk up to Q&A. It did not take long for the biggest question to come forth, “What about teens receiving non-reversible medical care.” This was not a conservative group, unlike the group to which I had spoken a few weeks ago in which an attendee asked about trans people grooming children. When a question like that comes up I go straight to the facts. There is no incidence, ever, not once, of a trans person grooming children. It is a complete and utter myth. I challenged the questioner to give me a single example. He said nothing because, of course, there are no examples.
In San Jose the vast majority of the congregants were very supportive of trans people. The question about medical care was genuine. I gave an honest and researched answer. When I have given that answer before, I have satisfied neither the right nor the left. I have been attacked from both sides. Until we stop listening to conspiracy theories on the right and engaging in cancel culture, standpoint theory, and essentiality on the left, we will never be able to follow the science. I am committed to following the science.
Today, the studies extant do not support irreversible medical treatment for the majority of transgender adolescents. There is one group that is an exception, but instead of getting the care they need, that small group is caught in the crossfire between the two extremes.
The audience was warmly supportive, with many thoughtful questions and comments after the session was over. I left grateful for the Builders and Baby Boomers who have been fighting the good fight for equal rights since the 1960s.
I eagerly accept invitations to speak at thoughtful and open churches. I do not request the fees I receive from corporations, conferences, or universities. I am just happy to get the word out that transgender people have a right to basic civil rights. I am quite sure the facts matter, and our stories must be told.
And so it goes
