A journalist and advocate who rose from homelessness and addiction to serve as a spokesperson for Philadelphia’s most vulnerable was shot and killed at his home early Monday, police said.
Josh Kruger, 39, was shot seven times at about 1:30 a.m. and collapsed in the street after seeking help, police said. He was pronounced dead at a hospital a short time later. Police believe the door to his Point Breeze home was unlocked or the shooter knew how to get in, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. No arrests have been made and no weapons have been recovered, they said.
Authorities haven’t spoken publicly about the circumstances surrounding the killing.
Show me a Christian or conservative acting like a bigot in this post, community, or even instance and I will gladly call them out. I am sure a few are hiding somewhere around here but they are few and far between. I do understand that there are instances where it is more common from them, but I do not regularly visit those places.
This is my main issue right here. None of this conversation would be happening u/I_Fart_Glitter had just acknowledged that u/gravitas_deficiency had spit out some vitriolic bigotry instead of defending. Their opinions may be understandable to you, but a public News forum is the wrong place to be spewing that kind of bigotry. If they gravitas has unresolved issues they need to get off their chest, there are plenty of appropriate forums for it.
This may be true for many Christians, but there are millions of American Christians that believe quite the opposite and would never tolerate that in a church.
I live in BFE Texas and there are ten Affirming Churches in the area; five of them are within about 45 minutes of me. As a comparison there are only two Cowboy Churches in the same area. Every major City I checked had several Affirming Churches.
https://www.gaychurch.org/find_a_church/
https://www.npr.org/2022/09/25/1124101216/trans-religious-leaders-say-scripture-should-inspire-inclusive-congregations
https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2023-07-06/one-in-five-united-methodist-congregations-in-the-us-have-left-the-denomination-over-lgbtq-conflicts
Belief is as fundamental to a person as sexuality or gender identity. Some people’s beliefs, gender identity, and sexuality change several times through their lives, others stick with the one assumed at birth, and anywhere in between.
You are right, I meant transitioning gender identity, not “gender transition”
What? I am sure there are cultures and religions where something different would be the norm, but do any of them represent a significant chunk of the world’s population? I did a bit of web-searching but can’t seem to find anything remotely related to this. I am getting swamped with references to child welfare laws and related court cases.
This is the first time I have gotten this deep into trans topics in a loooong time, but off the top of my head, I see two middle grounds between those stances.
“If you want to live your life as a different sex than you were assigned at birth, that is fine but don’t expect everyone else to agree with or support that choice.”
“Let adults live their lives as the sex they choose, but kids need to wait until they are out of high school if their parents refuse to accept it.”
I am sure there are other middle grounds between those stances even if both sides are offended by them.
How might it impact them? That brings me to your direct question.
Really? Is this just a setup to call me a bigot instead? Fine, I will express the opinions I have seen or heard from women who could probably be described as TERFs even if they don’t see themselves as such, but only with a spoiler tag and a few caveats.
Trigger warning. These are not my personal feelings. If someone taking oppositional stances or undercutting your self-identity will hurt you, please do not click this.
Caveat: I am neither a woman nor trans, nor do I have daughters or sisters, nor have I ever had any close trans friends or family, only regular acquaintances, nor am I strongly opinionated about whether trans-women are actually women. I really do not have a leg to stand on when taking a stance around this issue.
Another caveat: These are areas where the belief of what a trans person actually is controls the perspective. If you think a trans-woman is a woman, full stop, then this doesn’t make any sense at all. If you believe that a trans-woman is a man that prefers to live as a woman then it does, so in an effort to answer your question, I am going to frame it from that perspective.
A final caveat, from my admittedly limited perspective these particular issues only typically apply to trans-women and not usually trans-men. Though I am sure there are some exceptions to that.
First, the first woman X. I happened to have a conversation with a relatively young lady that went on a rant about Biden naming Rachel Levine as the first woman 4 star general of the Public Health Services Human Corps. She made quite the impassioned rant that it was undercutting women everywhere to call a “biological male” the first woman anything.
Second, women’s sports. The Riley Gaines and Lia Thomas thing last year was hard to miss. The main point of women’s sports seems to be related to fields where men absolutely dominate the standings. Though there are definitely some women’s leagues for certain things where I can’t see how it would matter. As I understand it, many men’s leagues around the world have no rule against women, it is just exceptionally rare that a woman is selected for them. The NHL for example has had exactly one female player and it was for an exhibition game back in the 90s. Should leagues be based off of physical size like boxing? Or should there be a testosterone check? No idea, but some people assigned female at birth definitely think it affects them.
Third, the old bathroom example. Men are feared in our society. Every one of us is viewed as a potential rapist. Women feel exceptionally uncomfortable in certain situations where a man is present or might be. It isn’t right, but it is the way things are. As long as bathrooms exist in their current form, some women, and some parents of young girls, are not going to be okay with people they see as men using the one for ladies.