I Know I Shouldn’t Do It…

But I am always amazed at the ignorance and the bigotry of people's comments to articles on trans-people, especially article on suicides.

There is an article in the LA Times on teenage suicides to trans-people and the of the comments are just horrible,

I don't suppose there is a possibility that 'transgenedered' and "gender non-conforming" people might be mentally unstable to begin with?

Perhaps the fact you are born with a penis really does make you a boy and if you are  born with a vagina makes you a girl.

This is what people have historically always believed and maybe it is true?

is it even remotely possible?

And another comment that said,

Is anyone surprised to learn that oeople [sic] who define themselves by their self-hatred and who devote their lives to poisoning and mutilating their own healthy bodies have a high rate of suicide attempts?

It is the lack of basic biology that gets to me; these people are living in the 1950s! They remember one thing from their biology class… boy, XY and girls, XX. There is so much more to gender than just chromosomes. The other group that gets my goat is the Bible thumpers; God said…  we have learned so much more in the two thousand years since the Bible was written.

In an article in the Wisconsin State Journal about the suicide of a trans-girl the comments show their ignorance and lack of thought.

40-50 suicides on average in Dane County. The only suicides that seem to be reported are stories like this or in the case of a murder - suicide. Hey Lead Jammer- show me the science. Science is not exact. Sociological inept parenting. A person's morals are more or less conditioned during the ages of 3-5 even if reasoning is not understood. A parent can get their kids at young ages to believe "anything." So odds are high for a suicide to occur weekly in Madison. Will they be reported in length or on the front page? NO.

The commenter just doesn’t understand that suicides are preventable, what makes this suicide important is that it was bigotry that brought the teen to take her own life. Bigotry and ignorance like the commenter.

What do we do about people like these who leave comments; do we take them on and start a flame war? Do we ignore them? Do we try to educate them?

One thing is certain; you are not going to change these people minds. They don’t care about facts; they see science like the person in the comment above, as a bunch of mumbo jumbo, voodoo magic. Getting into flame wars are not the answer either. All that does is inflame everyone and other people see us a a bunch of angry people. I see many people who posts link to medical sites where they explain research findings, I think that is a better approach or just leaving positive comments.

A person taught me when I was first coming out and speaking up, that you don’t want to talk to those who will never change their minds, it is a waste of time. You want instead to talk to the movable center because they are the one who will listen; they are the one that you can persuade. You also want to thank your supporters.

Martin Luther King said,

Morality cannot be legislated, but behavior can be regulated. Judicial decrees may not change the heart, but they can restrain the heartless.

Let us work to make the heartless shut up.