I feel like I have to choose between my religion and supporting trans rights

[DaughterofDawn]

I am pagan. (If you aren’t familiar I’ll go into detail about this further down) I have always been an enthusiastic ally of LGBT+ rights.

If you know what a pagan is feel free to skip this paragraph. If not please read.
Pagan beliefs vary quite a bit so my beliefs may not represent or reflect what other pagan believe but essentially I believe in the earth and that everything on it humans, animals , trees, plants insects and even rocks have a spirit and that we are all connected and one. I also believe in balance between light and dark which is also the divine feminine and the divine masculine. And I also believe in something called the triple goddess which is the maiden, mother and crone which are the three spiritual stages of a woman’s life. You do not necessarily have to become a biological mother to experience the spirituality of the mother stage. You merely have to feel motherly concern towards others. This could be anything from watching over a beloved pet or caring for a friend or a family member.

Now that that is done. I went into detail about my personal beliefs because it’s important to the story. My religion has given me through a lot of hard times and mental health crisis. It has grounded me. I have have very loving spiritual journeys and self discoveries with both the divine feminine and masculine. They are deeply ingrained with who I am. Up until now I have always felt like my spirituality was compatible with LGBT+ rights and that anyone can experience the divine feminine or masculine no matter who they are, what they look like or what body parts they may have. The triple goddess is all about the cycles of life and the earth beginning middle and end. I love it it is beautiful. The thing I love most about my religion is that it was always a safe retreat for me when I was exhausted from drama and politics.

Why am I telling you this? Because now it no longer feels like a safe retreat. My friend who used to be pagan recently came after me and told me that my religious practice is transphobic because of the divine feminine, masculine and the triple goddess because it is gender binary and the triple goddess is especially transphobic because of the mother stage.

I was blown away and absolutely flabbergasted. She was really pushy that I needed to change my views. We argued about it because I disagreed. I told her that anyone can experience these things no matter where they fall on the gender spectrum. But she told me it was inciting violence because it would make non binary people feel disphoric. 😳😳😳 And then I went silent when she said if I don’t want to continue practicing am oppressive religion that I either need to drop the triple goddess and divine feminine/masculine or convert to agnostic/atheism. I was completely blind sided by this. She wasn’t always like this. I am really confused about what brought this on. The divine female/male and triple goddess are core to my practice. To remove them would be to remove a critical part of myself.

I feel lost because now she has made me feel as if my religion and trans rights are not compatible. I also feel like I lost a friend because I did not immediately came to her sudden extreme (in my view) demands. I tried talking to her later after calling down but she has completely written me off. I might add that this is really out of character for her.

Am I being unreasonable? Or is it my friend? I can’t give up on my religion or the divine feminine/masculine or the triple goddess. Does that make me transphobic? I’m feeling really lost please help. 😢

Careful OP, you've come to one of the most transphobic corners of the internet to ask this question, so the responses you get may reflect that.

Sorry I don't know much about paganism but are there elders or senior figures within your religion you could talk to for advice?

Most religions are open to interpretation on some level and your views sound much more rational and tolerant than those of your friend. I'm reminded of when I converted to Christianity as a teenager, and a Christian friend asked me if it scared me knowing I was saved while my atheist family would burn in hell. Other Christians I know have been really shocked and saddened to hear this as it completely turned me off organised religion.

My friend who used to be pagan recently came after me and told me that my religious practice is transphobic because of the divine feminine, masculine and the triple goddess because it is gender binary and the triple goddess is especially transphobic because of the mother stage.

Your friend is a nutter.

@TinaYouFatLard

Is your friend a male type of woman by any chance?

Burn some candles, call the corners and Hex her. I would

I think it's out of order to try and force someone to change their religion. Your friend wouldn't be unreasonable if she said that she feels that the triple goddess is transphobic so is not a pagan any longer but who is she to try and force her views on others?
You're an adult woman capable of choosing your religion. (Aren't all major religions transphobic with their focus on male characters like Jesus? )
Your friend isn't unreasonable to say that she doesn't want to be friends with you. It's an unusual stance to have in 21st century UK (most people are live and let live) but that's her right. I would leave her alone. Don't try and justify your beliefs. They are yours.

@Iwanttenofthose

Careful OP, you've come to one of the most transphobic corners of the internet to ask this question, so the responses you get may reflect that.

Sorry I don't know much about paganism but are there elders or senior figures within your religion you could talk to for advice?

Most religions are open to interpretation on some level and your views sound much more rational and tolerant than those of your friend. I'm reminded of when I converted to Christianity as a teenager, and a Christian friend asked me if it scared me knowing I was saved while my atheist family would burn in hell. Other Christians I know have been really shocked and saddened to hear this as it completely turned me off organised religion.

OP has come to one of the few corners of the Internet that allows women to centre themselves in discussions about feminism, politics and life in general. Many men view this as terribly bigoted.

OP your friend is bonkers and can be safely ignored.

You do not forcibly convert someone to your way of belief you can discuss and disagree debate to your hearts content but change by force should never be allowed

Your belief your choice your not hurting people they can choose to step away from you if they disagree

What a load of old rubbish, it sounds like she needs to do some proper work and research on paganism to find the truth.
I've been pagan for 40 years and I've run a few covens (retired now) as a third degree initiated priestess.
She needs to educate herself. Paganism id full of gay, straight, transgender people who manage just fine.
Unfortunately there are an awful lot of ignorant people out there who have a very small amount of knowledge and a very big opinion but no intelligence.
I would ignore her if I were you. I know most of the covens in the UK and she'd get very short shrift from all of them.
Everyone's pagan path is different, everyone has there own relationship with the Gods, it is nobody else's right to tell them what they can and cannot believe.

It's hard to say what isn't transphobic at the moment - wingsoverscotland.com/everything-is-transphobic/.

And gender ideology seems to perfectly happy to exclude women who hold religious beliefs from single sex spaces.

You sound like you are sensitively trying to examine your own ideas but I think you're not going to be able to have a conversation with your friend because she is not being rational and is not respecting your beliefs. I'd say just crack on with what you've been doing.

If you're pagan, you will well know that word was used by Christianity to denigrate any non-Christian beliefs and erase them so thoroughly that we have little in the historical record to show how and what pre-Christian societies believed in. When words are erased, so is culture...which allows authoritarian ideologies to prosper.

Abrahamic religions are quite patriarchal, but do feminists demand all their Muslim, Christian and Jewish friends to give up their faith? No. Your friend is bullying you. Also, of all religions currently being practiced, our planet could benefit most from Mother Earth beliefs, considering the planet is burning.

I'm sorry you've been treated so poorly by your friend. Tell her your religion is none of her business and intolerance of faith is not very inclusive

@Pluvia

Is anyone else scratching their heads about why anyone who's GC would support a person to hold one set of irrational beliefs but not another?

It's all woo. Wicca, paganism, religion, spirituality, gender belief.. They're irrational belief systems.

I agree that belief isn't rational. If religious beliefs don't harm anyone and give the practitioner peace, who cares? It becomes a problem when you expect OTHERS to participate in your religion and accommodate you at a disadvantage or danger to themselves.

Trans people deserve the same rights as any religious person and they should have the same citizen responsibilities as any other religious person. The problem is that some TRAs want rights that harm others, similar to how some religions use government to harm citizens (think Iran and forced hijab).

I'm sure there are religious zealots in Iran who say, "what is wrong with wearing a headscarf using your bathrooms-how does that harm women? It's a small gesture like sharing your pronouns to show you're a believer you're not transphobic and TWAW and make men feel safe from impure thoughts like material reality.

Why not just apply the scientific and 'reality' measures that you apply to ideas of sex and gender to your other beliefs? Gender is a social construct, so is religion. Give it all up. Be a gender atheist, be an atheist in everything. No beliefs, just knowledge. Love the planet and nature and the phases of the moon and the seasons because of what they actually are. Be in awe and wonder of the fact that we are here, on a beautiful planet, alone in an expanding universe. Give up belief in gods and other things that don't exist and instead practice philosophy and think more carefully about things that do.

@Pluvia

Why not just apply the scientific and 'reality' measures that you apply to ideas of sex and gender to your other beliefs? Gender is a social construct, so is religion. Give it all up. Be a gender atheist, be an atheist in everything. No beliefs, just knowledge. Love the planet and nature and the phases of the moon and the seasons because of what they actually are. Be in awe and wonder of the fact that we are here, on a beautiful planet, alone in an expanding universe. Give up belief in gods and other things that don't exist and instead practice philosophy and think more carefully about things that do.

I've done that. It's why I'm Pagan.

Wow so lush to see lots of other earth worshippers. Ultimately every human is entitled to believe and make sense of their eorld around them with behatever framework they want. It's our right. This issue is when we force others to take part in that, when we force our belief on other people.

Sounds like she is focing her gender ideology on you.

Stay grounded sister. X

@FavEne

Hey OP. I'm a non-binary trans femme. I think this friend of yours is in the wrong here, and knowing nothing about them, I could only speculate as to where this has come from, but I'm personally not seeing anything gender essentialist about your beliefs.

I'm not sure why you'd come to Mumsnet for advice on whether something was transphobic, though.

If I’m being entirely honest I came to mumsnet because for a long time I felt like I was forcing myself to believe something that didn’t entirely feel right. I still believe that trans people deserve respect and to be addressed as their chosen name pronouns and allowed to go about their daily lives dressing however they like and makes them comfortable without being harassed. But them entering women’s spaces always bothered me. It also always bothered me that it has become annoying and difficult to talk about my pregnancy with my midwives and online without tip toeing around gender ideology. I didn’t like being called a pregnant person. It made me feel like my identity as a woman didn’t matter. Why are my feelings as a woman dismissed and minimized but trans people are treated as if they are made of finely spun glass?

I thought of I went along with it my feelings would eventually catch up but they didn’t. Usually when I felt these doubts I would turn to facebook, reddit or instagram and everyone would push me back into those beliefs and that I was merely misguided. I went along with it. Trusting them.

But my friend attacking this critical core part of myself that makes me who I am has shattered everything. I am now at a cross roads with gender ideology. She literally forced me into an identity crisis about who I am and how I perceive feminism and whether or not it’s actually benefiting myself as a woman. I’m tired of turning to social platforms that have micromanaged the conversation so much that the answers are predictable and and sound like the same person or a record on repeat. I want to hear different unfiltered opinions on it because to get passed this and truly decide what my true feelings on this are I need to hear honest opinions from all corners of the issue.

I don’t know what to believe anymore. But I know that I cannot give up my religious practices. But the trans movement has a history I have witnessed of finding corners of the internet and slowly over time
taking them over and shaping them like playdough in their hands to fit whatever suits them even if it causes great distress to the people around them.

So I see this as the beginning of an attack on my beliefs. A belief and practice that has largely been mistreated and oppressed. My great grandmother was beaten and hanged in Texas because of her beliefs and my mother who adopted her beliefs has lived her entire married life in the broom closest pretending to be christian for fear of being ostracized. I’m the first generation in my family to be openly pagan. So I am watching this very closely.

It is a big turning point I am not willing to compromise on. If trans advocates come after us then my hand will be forced. I have never wanted to be a bigot or be considered one. My father was a bigot and I’ve seen the dark side of his bigotry and I detest it and have done everything to be an accepting person. But if I have to own that label in order to keep this part of me then I might just have to do that. 🙁 But I really don’t want to do that. I hope that our beliefs stay respected and unchanged. We as a people have been changing constantly to please others for so long.

It really hurts. Hate me for feeling that way if you want. I don’t know what else to say. But I can’t apologize for these feelings.

You sound very considered and reflective OP. Most of us had a similar journey towards our views on gender.

@mathanxiety

The word 'erasure' springs to mind.

I have been feeling this way but pushing it down. I don’t think I can keep ignoring it anymore. It does feel like erasure. My sister is dianic and even though I’ve never sharedher beliefs she has stopped attending circles because everything has been changed to be inclusive. She didn’t want to rock the boat so she attended a few more times and then distanced herself from the coven. She says she feels lonely now because she was never the solitary type. Being pagan is already very isolating. This was not helping. I confess I am guilty of diminishing her feelings. I told this was ultimately a good thing as trans women often feel excluded and were women need to make room for them. She said it didn’t feel the same though but all the feminine words that made it feel beautiful and sacred to her were removed and she couldn’t feel her connection with it anymore. I should have been more supportive. 😞

@NoSquirrels

Am I being unreasonable? Or is it my friend?

It’s your friend.
As with all religions, being tolerant of others beliefs is key to acceptance. She’s not being tolerant and dressing it up as you being intolerant.

Thank you. Reading this has given me a lot to think about.

@Ionlydomassiveones

“…and the triple goddess is especially transphobic because of the mother stage.”

Are all real-life women, actually going through the ‘mother stage’, giving birth to real-life actual babies, out their actual wombs, transphobic then, for simply existing?

If even a mere belief in something to do with mothering is now transphobic - what do trans supporters actually want biological women to do with their reproductive reality? Not talk about it? Deny its existence? Give birth in dark, secret underground bunkers? Or worse?

This ideology would be laughable if it wasn’t so harmful and evil.

When you put it that way it certainly puts things into perspective.

It sounds like you're looking to have people validate your beliefs, and to feel justified in feeling uncomfortable about or even scared of trans people, and from that perspective, I think I can understand why mumsnet appealed.

So, for what it's worth, I don't agree with your friends attack on your beliefs, at least so far as you've described them here. I also feel deeply sorry that you've been described as a 'pregnant person' during your pregnancy - that's certainly not what 'inclusive language' is supposed to mean. You've had some unfortunate run-ins, it seems, and I understand and sympathise with the pain these have caused you. I'm really sorry these things have happened to you.

I can't offer much more than that, unfortunately. I'm just one trans person who happened to dip in to mumsnet at a random time to see this call for help. I really hope other people don't try to hurt your for your beliefs in a horribly misguided attempt to protect trans people. That's not what I want, and I sincerely doubt it's what any of the other trans people I know would want.

Thank you for replying to my comment, at least. I'm glad you got to see it, and I hope it helps

[quote FavEne]It sounds like you're looking to have people validate your beliefs, and to feel justified in feeling uncomfortable about or even scared of trans people, and from that perspective, I think I can understand why mumsnet appealed.

So, for what it's worth, I don't agree with your friends attack on your beliefs, at least so far as you've described them here. I also feel deeply sorry that you've been described as a 'pregnant person' during your pregnancy - that's certainly not what 'inclusive language' is supposed to mean. You've had some unfortunate run-ins, it seems, and I understand and sympathise with the pain these have caused you. I'm really sorry these things have happened to you.

I can't offer much more than that, unfortunately. I'm just one trans person who happened to dip in to mumsnet at a random time to see this call for help. I really hope other people don't try to hurt your for your beliefs in a horribly misguided attempt to protect trans people. That's not what I want, and I sincerely doubt it's what any of the other trans people I know would want.

Thank you for replying to my comment, at least. I'm glad you got to see it, and I hope it helps

OP you might appreciate this post by Starhawk from a few years ago: starhawk.org/how-do-we-call-a-truce-in-the-gender-wars/

I think I agree with almost all of it.

Gender ideology feels like an attack on the sacred feminine. Another witch hunt. This time it is coming in the form of complete colonialisation - they dont want to merely suppress us, silence us, burn us, and block our wisdom sharing. They want to get in the middle of us and tear us up. They want us to be indefinable.

We are not the dirty 'other' this time, but we are nothing. For them to yank about and made into whatever form they prefer - I think to be total sexual open, gaping receivers. They will colonise our sisterhood and make it to serve them, sexually and reproductively.

And the lesbians who are of no use? Well they will be hacked up, broken, made redundant, put on chemicals and destroyed.

Every time there is a big change to the patriarchy, the fist of man slams down on women, to control us, to hold us down.

The witch hunts and burnings were a huge one. We are witnessing the tale play out again.

We need solidarity and strength. We need keen vision and to be brave and steadfast. Luckily we do not face being burned. How our ancestors must have feared, how brutal their silence.

You need to have total self faith, self conviction. You do not need any reassurance or acceptance from anyone. You just need to go deeply inside and feel your truth.

In these moments of black magic, of a psychic attack which leaves you shaken and weakened, go and draw your circles of defence, your white light, your visualisations.

You need to be strong and allow no one to shake you, it's your work.

She's only one person. It's possible that she felt worried due to her own concerns that somehow you could be vulnerable to insult or attack, but she's ended up upsetting you very deeply and disrespecting your beliefs.

It's for her to worry, really. Find yourself again, perhaps take a break from the friendship.