It's against my religion to...

[PikesPeaked]

Faith and belief are protected characteristics. This includes lack of religion or belief.

I do not believe that people can change sex.
I do not believe that a male can be a woman, nor that a female can be a man.

I am Jewish.

Judaism forbids us from standing by when another person is at risk of harm.
Judaism forbids us from deceiving a vulnerable person.

Trans ideology harms both young people exposed to it (ROGD) and women in general.

Judaism requires us to treat others with dignity.
Judaism requires us to treat others as we would wish to be treated ourselves.

Sorry, hit post by accident.

I do my best to follow these rules in every day life.

Why should I have to change my faith-driven behaviour because of another person's beliefs?

Of course, I cannot say these things out loud because it would give anti-Semites another stick with which to beat Judaism.

I feel your pain, I worry many Muslims are in a similar position.

I don't understand how trans 'rights' get to trump all other rights including those following long established religions

& I imagine many strict RC too

It's entirely against all that I know and understand about biology to expect me to 'believe' something I do not and cannot.

My "religion" is Vedanta, the philosphical branch of Hinduism, which is more about psychology than about a God per se.

Vedanta teaches the concept of non-duality. Duality is the pairs of opposites, light-dark, good-evil. male-female. So what they call binary and non-binary, we call dual and non-duality, with non-duality being the aim. So far so good.
Vedanta refers to all "identities" as upadhi, a Sanskrit word meaning attribute; the aim is to be free of all attributes, to achieve a final state of non-duality, which is perfect happiness. Male and female are only attributes; they are very real for us humans, but we have to eventually transcend them to reach our true being, which is beyond both. THAT for me, is being truly non-binary.

Hindus believe that we should accept our dualistic roles as just that, roles; they are temporary; and in the meantime seek our true self beyond the roles. Transgenderism is totally contrary to this religion, since you are simply exchanging one temporary identity for another, and only end up in a muddle.

Vedanta has been around for thousands of years. The concept of a non-dual (non-binary) self is ancient; just that Hindus don't make a huge fuss about it or cling to one identity or the other.

This is what I believe, as it coincides with my own experience.
Belief is faith.
Faith is generally ridiculed as unscientific.
People of faith are ridiculed in our society.
Yet we are supposed to accept it when a perfect stranger in a male body says I am a woman!

People of the GC position often express concern about how swallowing the rhetoric will further restrict observant Muslim or Jewish women from participating in wider society, for example not being allowed to access gyms or healthcare because of the presence of males. This indeed a problem.

But it goes far deeper than this.

I am a modern, assimilated Jew. I am not Orthodox. I am not ritualistic. Nonetheless my faith shapes my life. It helps me do my best to be a good person, a good member of many communities (not just my faith community) and a good member of society.

I am sure that I am not alone in this. I am sure that there are many Christians, Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus who maintain the values of their religions because they support society, even if they no longer practice every ritual.

This is being taken away from us.

Trans ideology is surely anti-Christian too. The first page of my bible states...

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.

Gen 1:27

The trans cult is a weird religion. It assumes that a)souls have a sex and that b) God makes mistakes and sticks female souls into male bodies.
As a mainstream Christian and a gc feminist, I have a major problem with that. And no, I will not be complicit in validating their beliefs, particularly as they come at the expense of women’s safety, dignity and right to exist as a class.

As a progressive society we separate the internal from the external: thoughts and beliefs are internal and may not be policed by society, actions are external and may be policed by society. We separate the internal from the external because we recognise that thoughts are private and harmless to others until acted upon, whereas deeds are public and can cause harm to others.

This is also a fundamental part of Jewish philosophy.

People of faith are ridiculed in our society.

Indeed. You're welcome to jeer derisively at people about sky fairies until the cows come home, HQ call this 'robust discussion'. I've checked on this. I suspect the difference is that there are not a highly litigious bunch of pests observing MN and reporting/harassing mods night and day with no interest in using it, just in policing women's language. And that the people jeered at about sky fairies just call the jeerer a twat and go away instead of going berserk.

'I don't believe in identity politics' may be my new go to.

I'm Jewish too, and I feel that the Reform movement has drunk the kool-aid, what with Rabbi Janner-Klausner appearing on Radio 4 with her overly-optimistic obfuscating homilies.

Freedom of religion means you are free to follow whatever faith you want, but with that comes the responsibility to respect those who don't agree with your beliefs! Your beliefs don't trump anyone else's and it's very unreasonable to expect that they should. If someone wishes to change their gender you are free to disagree on private but they are protected as much as you from discrimination

I'm an atheist and I regard gender identity ideology as a neo-religion.

I support the right for any individual to follow any belief system they choose. Simultaneously, I reserve the right to criticise any belief system that does harm to others.

It seems that followers of the traditional religions can understand this perfectly well. It's only genderists who won't accept it. They require us all to submit to a theocracy and I'm afraid I shall continue in my heretical ways.

JustAnotherWoman
"I don't understand how trans 'rights' get to trump all other rights including those following long established religions"

They don't .. it is because they are men and that they are bullying everyone else into submission to put them first that it seems that way.

Remember that "gender identity" has no legal meaning. It does not exist other than as a weird notion that has been concocted by those men who demand that society comply with their desire to express their fetish anywhere and at any time they choose.

I'm not religious in the slightest. I have a great interest in other people's faiths and religions but I don't hold any beliefs myself.

This nonsense goes against my very simple belief in science.

I support the right for any individual to follow any belief system they choose. Simultaneously, I reserve the right to criticise any belief system that does harm to others.

Precisely.

@anniehm religions are not protected from people not believing in them or disagreeing with them. There's no law against saying you don't believe in a god. But several people have been questioned by police for simply questioning gender ideology. Disagreeing that humans can change sex is not the same thing as saying someone can't pretend that they can.

Freedom of religion means you are free to follow whatever faith you want, but with that comes the responsibility to respect those who don't agree with your beliefs! Your beliefs don't trump anyone else's and it's very unreasonable to expect that they should. If someone wishes to change their gender you are free to disagree on private but they are protected as much as you from discrimination

When I was reading your comment I thought that you were referring to transgenderism up until your last point. The whole paragraph fits when applied to transgenderism as a belief system. It's the insistence that we all pretend to believe in genderism that many people find alarming.

It is absolutely fine to ridicule and disagree with religious/spiritual beliefs IMO. There is no need or obligation whatsoever to 'disagree in private'. I say this as a member of a faith group that regularly gets a pasting on MN and elsewhere.

What is not OK is to say 'X believes Y, so deserves to die in a fire'. For example. Or 'X belongs to Y faith group so I will not employ them'. But nobody is saying this about genderists and neither should they.

What we are saying is we will not comply with Genderists religious beliefs and attempts to force them on the rest of society and harm women and children in the process. The Catholic Church is currently in the headlines for not doing nearly enough to protect the vulnerable from predators in it's midst. It's an absolutely shameful disgrace.

I'd be rightly slapped down hard for trying to introduce laws that meant everyone had to genuflect when approaching a tabernacle or recite a rosary each day.

But Genderists get to press for law changes, demanding people genuflect address people by religious language preferred pronouns and access to the vulnerable via the weakening of safeguarding, and it's being waved through with indulgent smiles.

If someone wishes to change their gender you are free to disagree on private

No, I am free to disagree in public.

Just as I am free to say in public that I do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, just as I am free to say in public that I do not believe that Mohammed was the last prophet, just as you are free to say in public that you do not believe that God chose the Jews.

What none of us are free to speak are lies and hatred.

Only, of course, I am not free to disagree in public because the laws of our land are being abused.

I've said for a long time that I am deeply uncomfortable using religious customs, practices and dictats (such as not being allowed to be alone with a non-family member of the opposite sex; having to cover hair or face when with a non-family member of the opposite sex) as reasons to oppose the imposition of things like "all gender bathrooms" .

I acknowledge that it does create real and practical problems for women who observe religions that do preclude things like attending a mixed swimming session, and I don't think that their voices are heard loudly enough in the current debate.

But I disagree so strongly with the idea that women should have to cover their head because there is a man in the room that I don't want it to be the lynchpin of GC arguments against TRA's demands.

I am not religious, but I am also entitled to the privacy, dignity and safety that single sex spaces provide, and I would also prefer that women were not limited by religious restrictions (because it's always women who have to change their dress, their behaviour)

If someone wishes to change their gender you are free to disagree on private

No, I am free to disagree in public.

Quite. The only religions you aren't allowed to criticise openly are enforced state religions. Just sayin'

@Bezalelle Rabbi Janner-Klausner is like women who insist that feminism is about looking out for everyone's rights.

Anniehm,surely you can see that if genderists are allowed to preach their faith in public while others may only express a contrary view in private, one is trumping the other. Why should that be?
I am not religious, but I attach very strong ethical and emotional value to objective truth. When genderists express their views in public I find their views offensive to those deeply held beliefs. But I do not say therefore they should be silenced. What they should be is argued with. As should we all.

I agree, OlennasWimple. However, in the Western world at least, the majority of people adhering to a religion live by the philosophy and the faith more than the rituals.

The beliefs and practices of this new 'faith' are being given priority over all other beliefs and practices.

All the monotheistic religions state that man shall not lie with another man as with a woman. Most of us have been quite happy to give up this belief because we see that it does not conflict with other fundamental beliefs of these religions:^^ that we should not harm people, that we should treat people with respect.

I cannot give up the beliefs and practices of my faith when doing so would cause harm to others and take away respect from them.