On the
LGBTQIA+
Community

They are individuals recognized as We The People in our Constitution and are protected by all the rights therein that are there to support the Blessings of Liberty for them and the rest of us.

As president Eisenhower said, "you cannot legislate morality." I believe, along the same logic, "you cannot legislate gender."

I strongly oppose the current administration's executive order stating that there are only two sexes — but, sadly, I think that only an act by the Supreme Court, a new sitting president, or an act of congress can overturn it.

I will not support any legislation that attempts to legislate gender, which puts me in a bind as far as the Congressional Act needed to overturn the executive order goes. I believe the 14th Amendment already supports individuals who identify as trans and their right to their Blessings of Liberty as stated in the Preamble.

I have great sympathy for individuals who "do not feel at home" in their own bodies. I have been grossly obese since my parents' divorce when I was 13, and struggled with my own body dysmorphia.

It is not exactly the same as what individuals identifying as trans are experiencing — any medical intervention would affect their fertility, while mine (liposuction or stomach stapling) would help my disorder but not remove a key, underlying biological function like one's fertility.

I chose neither intervention. I only recently lost the weight when I became a USPS mail carrier and was finally placed on effective medications for my chronic depression and anxiety.

Concerning parental involvement in preadolescent and adolescent medical interventions, I have to side with parental involvement unless the child has been successfully emancipated from their parents. I would have to rely on the other non-parent adults who are mandatory child abuse reporters to protect the child from any abuse perpetrated by the parents.

It is a very difficult issue — we all have had to go through adolescence and establish our personal relationships with our bodies, our sexuality, and the society we live in.

For me, the film The Rocky Horror Picture Show helped me accept the LGBTQIA+ community. I found I was attracted to the Frank-N-Furter character as played by the amazing Tim Curry — but not sexually attracted. The film helped me establish my own heterosexuality.

I never had the luck of finding my long-term love because I let my obesity blind me to any efforts of women beyond the "friend zone" — so I will not stand in the way of those people who find their significant partner in love.

I would ask that anyone claiming to be a Christian who wants to "cast stones" at anyone in the LGBTQIA+ community to re-read John 8:1–11. I would also beseech them to read the First Commandment — because if they set themselves up in judgment over others, they set themselves up as false gods and therefore violate it.

I am a deist, like the founders of our nation. I studied religions and religious history as an undergraduate at UCSC, and I found all world religions to teach peace, not war. War is discussed in some, but the overarching teachings are of peace.