The following is a great surprise to me. I had known that Shia Muslims were supportive to transgender folk, however this is a surprise.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/transgender-mus...
Transgender Muslims
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Comments
transgender
I'm glad that the U.S Military going to start allowing transgender in their ranks something they should of did years ago.
Transgendered Muslims
I live in the heart of Detroit, and we have a VERY LARGE Muslim community here. It has been my experience in the 3 years I've been here, that most Muslims are A LOT like every other race / religion on the planet. It SICKENS me the way that the media can take the actions of a few insurgent militants and denounce an entire culture. Most Muslims here are VERY OPEN to the LGBT communities. In fact, there is a support group EXPRESSLY for Muslims in Ferndale that meets bimonthly. I beg of you all -- do not judge harshly the actions of an entire people just because the actions of a few bad apples gets blown out of proportion. The reason news is news is because it sparks a reaction in the viewers / readers. Unfortunately, in this day and age, horror sells more than "fluff" does.
*Kisses*
Haylee V
*Kisses Always*
Haylee V
That is surprising...
However, I'd disagree with your assessment that Shia are particularly better disposed towards transgender than other Muslims. Or even "supportive" at the leadership level. The best I'd say for any of the Islamic sects is that some are surprisingly tolerant at a leadership level. Individuals are, of course, individual. I'd say that both Sunni and Shia would surprise most people who were raised with the traditional level of intolerance towards Islam that the developed western nations foster... If they'd just actually sit down with them and have a fucking discussion.
A lot of the shit going on between the West and the Islamic world would cease if we'd all just stop holding on to past grudges and sit down and talk to each other. Not "our" leaders and their leaders though. Ours have the double whammy of not really even representing us AND showing they would prefer to make things worse. Theirs just... there's just too much enmity there. A lot of it is understandable, but still. It'd be better if we could somehow get EVERYONE to just TALK to each other.
Oh, and what I said about not really considering them supportive... That's true of almost every religion. The only religions I'd really call supportive of us are the folks trying to reclaim past pagan traditions in Europe, the native American traditions, and some of the Far Eastern ones.
Abigail Drew.
Once you get to know them
They really are not that much different from the rest of us.
Having lived and worked in both Saudi and Jordan which are pretty opposite when it comes to strictness, the people themselves are pretty nice and very welcoming to outsiders.
I also know and have very good and informed arguments with an Imam from Pakistan.
The sad thing is that like communists before them (Reds under the bed and McCarthyism etc) all Muslims are lumped together and branded Terrorists. They are clearly not but those who think otherwise will never agree to change their views.
The Hardliners in Islam are in my eyes very similar to the Hell and Damnation Preachers in Christianity.
i.e. Everyone who does not follow their doctrine is doomed to go to hell and not find salvation.
These are the people that breed intolerance that in some cases leads to people doing bad things in the name of their faith when in reality it is nothing of the kind.
Would the world be a better place without religion? Hard to say but IMHO, and on the balance probably no.
As long as people are tolerant and happy, let them live their life and don't interfere.
Samantha
Oh...
Please, I hope no one mistook my meaning on my comments on religion. I've been witness to the horrors unleashed by intolerance from atheistic people as well. In fact, atheists are most likely in my experience, to mirror the current prevailing dogma of the science types, until the science types eventually, finally, prove a theory that went counter to all their dogma. And, from someone who's READ the scientific literature on transgender people... It's awful. Which is not surprising. For a supposed "discipline" that pretends to put aside the preconceptions of those who practice it, it's full of just such preconceptions, most of which come from a very Orthodox Catholic view of reality. No joke. Seriously. It's full of nonsense from Catholicism except where a theory finally proved Catholicism nonsense. Nothing against Catholics, even most practicing Catholics will admit there's a lot of nonsense in their doctrines. Some of it readily. Some of it... They might need to be given a little push to accept defeat. ;)
These days I personally lean towards having a belief in SOMETHING spiritual... but I'm now finding myself agnostic on what that something really is. In my view, whatever is out there beyond the four dimensions we can observe is, by all current measures, unknowable. Any fights over what form it may take, or whether it even is there at all are all going to lead to the same horrible place, and that is intolerance to a view that isn't your own.
Part of why I continue to feel there has to be something spiritual is my own status as a transgender woman, and my study of the literature on all studied cases. It doesn't follow any of the tested patterns. Whatever causes it is either a strange mix of genetics that can only happen by random mutations... and not direct genetic inheritance. Or something science CAN'T test. Our Soul. While certainly possible, the former is so vanishingly improbable that honestly, the Soul idea makes more sense to me. That something could be completely random chance, with a large set of genetic mutations as the cause, but never directly inheritable, and yet not even more rare than we are? Nah. Not likely. But that's the only thing that science could POTENTIALLY look for as a cause, that's currently untested. The only other explanation is that it's our Soul, which currently known science doesn't even know how to look for.
Abigail Drew.
Yea for the higer power
what ever it is as for genetics their are a lot of recessive genes out there red hair blood type markers O and negative tetrachromatic vision to name a few they have shown gender variations in how the brain is wired and and transgenderism dose crop up in family groups and blood lines with more frequency but sample rates are quite small as of yet and Dr.s do not like what they find and tend to lose that data my version transgender looks like duck walks like duck quacks like duck must be a duck same for male or female people how they behave and present is how I view them. Have a good day and enjoy life.
Have a good day and enjoy life.
Well.
I hesitate to assert that there definitively is any higher power at work in any of this. Just things outside of our currently observable dimensions. These things don't need to be "higher" or "lower". They could be directly parallel. I'm not saying either that there ISN'T something "higher" or "lower". Just that I wouldn't definitely finger it.
Abigail Drew.
Oh
Well I will not argue that point not my place and find organized religions to not be following their religious texts. Have a god day and enjoy life.
Have a good day and enjoy life.
An accident of birth
I am by birth Muslim but not by belief.
Ahabidah
I also...
No longer fully believe what I was born in. I continue to think that many of the concepts taught were on the right track, but the religion I was raised in as a whole has too much wrong in my opinion. My religion of birth is of public account on this site, but for anyone who might not want to check, I was raised Mormon, a Christian sect.
Abigail Drew.
I am...
a transgender Muslim. And yes, Shia have a bit more of a predisposition to accepting the idea of transgender Muslims, it really does come down to individuals and not groups. I am a part of a couple groups such as Muslims for Progressive Values...but like Christianity, the attacks on transgender Muslims are taken out of context in the Qur'an as far as I've been able to tell.
Samirah M. Johnstone
Idk...
Maybe it's just a natural extension of the kind of people I tend to attract to myself, but whilst all the Muslims I know in my personal life are Sunni, they're all very supportive as well. From what I've seen from those I don't know personally, Shiite and Sunni do not seem at all different in this regard. As you said immediately after saying Shia have a bit more of a predisposition to accepting transgender... It really does come down to individuals, not groups. On the scale of leadership, simply to the law of averages, tolerance seems to be the most we can expect. On the individual level... There's a lot of very open minded individual Muslims out there. Including individual imams. Just as there are for members of any religion.
Abigail Drew.
Transgender
I have studied the writings as in the holy books of most major religions and in non of them is being transgender homosexual or other a crime or a problem other than food the teachings come down to the golden rule (treat others as you would be treated) have a good day and enjoy life.
Have a good day and enjoy life.