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Christian homeless shelter files lawsuit for their ‘right’ to reject trans people

As first reported by our friends over at Friendly Atheist, a Christian homeless shelter filed a lawsuit against the city of Anchorage, Alaska for the right to refuse services for trans people.

Because nothing screams Christian Values™ more than judging someone on what genitals they were born with.

Alliance Defending Freedom argues that the Hope Center should be able to deny services because other clients “shouldn’t be forced to sleep or disrobe in the same room as a man.”

For me, what’s most amusing is that more often than not, you wouldn’t know that someone was trans until they tell you. Personally, I have three friends that I had no idea were trans until they told me or wrote about it publicly.

And that’s the way it should be.

It’s nobody else’s business.

This is similar to conservative arguments in the past that claim trans people using their preferred bathroom represents some kind of threat to non-trans people. Their argument is that people will pretend to be trans so they can sexually assault people. Not only is this argument pathetically stupid, but actual scientific research into this claim has found that there is absolutely no link between transgender rights laws and crimes occurring in bathrooms.

As Friendly Atheist reported:

Alliance attorney Ryan Tucker said many women at the shelter are survivors of violence and allowing biological men would be highly traumatic for them. He told U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason that women have told shelter officials that if biological men are allowed to spend the night alongside them, “they would rather sleep in the woods,” even in extreme cold like the city has experienced this week with temperatures hovering around zero.

That’s one of the dumbest claims I’ve ever heard.

I’m a former social worker, and based on my firsthand experience working with victims of domestic violence, not a single one was concerned about the potential for someone at their shelter being transgender. Even if they were concerned about it, most victims of trauma simply aren’t thinking in those terms – many are starting at the bottom of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, worried primarily about food, shelter, and clothing for themselves and their children.

All this amounts to is an effort to “poison the well” by right-wing conservatives to further ostracize transgender people and paint them as evil. Data, research, and common sense tells us that transgender people – especially victims of domestic violence – pose no greater threat to society than a cisgender person.

Whoever oppresses the poor shows contempt for their Maker, but whoever is kind to the needy honors God. (Proverbs 14:31)

It really makes you wonder if these “Christians” have actually read the Bible that they pretend to value so much.

Cover image via iStockphoto

Written by Dan Broadbent

Science Enthusiast. Atheist. Lover of cats.

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