The "punished accordingly" bit refers to the Christian belief that people who disobey the will of God will go to Hell for eternal torment, rather than being any sort of militant threat against anyone's life.
Yesterday was a pretty grim anniversary in the annals of queer history: it's been a decade since Leelah Alcorn killed herself. Her mother posted to her social media accounts the day after, misgendering and deadnaming her own daughter, whose death you would think would have provoked more of a response than just the out-of-context citation of an inapplicable bible verse. I remember seeing that post on Tumblr and responding with something out of Galatians (I can't recall the exact co-ordinates): "There is no Jew or Gentile, there is no slave or free, we are all one in Christ Jesus." Something like that. Conservatives are always quick to cite the Old Testament in rebuke of people who clash with their narrow idea of normalcy, completely forgetting WHY there is a NEW testament.
I went rooting around in my Tumblr archive and found the post I mentioned.
The "punished accordingly" bit refers to the Christian belief that people who disobey the will of God will go to Hell for eternal torment, rather than being any sort of militant threat against anyone's life.
Sadly, Leelah isn't alone. Queer kids of all stripes kill themselves in order to silence the jeers of their classmates, the taunts of their ex-friends, and the condemnation of their parents' religion. They receive no support and only hear that they are "abnormal", "unnatural", "degenerate", or whatever. They feel unworthy of love and decide to solve the problem of their existence by dying. Oh sure, President Obama and a bunch of liberal senators used Leelah's name to score cheap political points, and she became a trending tag on social media. That's the thing: so-called "trans allies" will raise $1000 for a dead transgirl, but they'll completely ignore the ones who are still alive. That sort of reactionary allyship is why so many of us suffer silently in the closet for our whole lives. Even the queer community doesn't accept us with any reliability. "LGB community" intentionally excludes transgender people by just chopping a letter off the acronym. Considering the LGBT+ rights movement wouldn't even exist without the likes of Marsha P. Johnson, Miss Major, and Sylvia Rivera, to have their letter put at the end of the alphabet soup in the first place is insulting. We can't count on our parents, we can't count on our friends, we can't even count on the so-called "community", where does that leave us? Often, in the ground, beneath headstones bearing our deadnames.
It's at times like this that I remember that I am incredibly privileged to be where I am right now. My luck was astronomically good to be allowed to transition without meeting any adversity at any stage of the process. We often lose sight of the difficulties facing transgender people as soon as we take our first regular dose of HRT, even going so far as to suggest that it's easy to obtain it. I was able to use an inexperienced doctor to my advantage in getting my referral in the first place, plus a newly-established gender care clinic was seeking new patients at the same time, and I was able to get my referral, my consultation, and my first dose of HRT within a month. The phrase "statistically improbable" doesn't even come close to how lucky I was. This state is about the DEEPEST red you can get outside the former Confederacy, small towns around here have about 120 people and 5 churches, our liberal legislators know they can't possibly advance a pro-LGBT agenda so they campaign on being such a pain in the ass in the legislative chamber that conservatives call for cloture votes— by all rights, I shouldn't even have this. But I do. Not only the HRT, but my mum has been supportive, the insurance company plays a trick or two in my face but relents eventually and pays for my meds, and everyone I've asked to call me "Tina" has. I'm unbelievably privileged to be where I am right now, and I try to be thankful for it every time I take my meds.
Let's make 2025 the year we all rally around our trans siblings and give them a solid support structure. I don't want any other trans people, kids or adults, to feel they would be better off dead. You matter! You're important! And, even if you can't come out of the closet right now, I still love you.