Faith, Gender Identity, and Suicide @DavidOlson11

Back in November, one of our local freeway interchanges was shut down after a man suicided by jumping off the overpass. I recently discovered that man was a transgendered woman, Kaylee Johnson, who also struggled with her faith because of gender identity issues. David Olson's article about Johnson stated:

Johnson had a hard time reconciling her faith in God with her gender identity, after leaving the Mormon faith she grew up with and relied on for support, because she didn’t feel accepted by the church. 

She was stung by rejection from people she loved and whose acceptance she desperately wanted, especially some members of her family, Chambers said.

I didn't know Johnson, so I can't speak to what influenced this final attempt. But as Olson's article states, many transgendered people struggle with faith and consider or attempt suicide. A lot of focus has been on the impact of religion on homosexuality and suicide, as I've written about before. While this awareness is wonderful, anyone familiar with LGBT issues know the T usually gets the least attention. And those falling in the T category are often even more misunderstood than non-heterosexual orientation. Greater misunderstanding=greater persecution.

Regardless of one's beliefs on LGBT issues, I hope all can agree that suicide is tragic and not a desirable outcome. Everyone, especially those of us from faith communities, need to act in ways that prevent such destruction, not contribute to it. People of the Christian faith need to remember that Jesus loved, supported, valued, and spent almost all of his time with the people who were misunderstood, rejected, and devalued. That sort of action positively changed lives, unlike the condemning and criticizing and judging of the Pharisees.

We have the opportunity to literally save people's lives by how we treat them. And even for those who value the next life more than the current one--we can't save someone if they're dead. So please, remember our faith-based priorities when encountering those who are different from and those we don't understand. It could be the difference between life and death. Literally.

It Gets Better: Christianity, Homosexuality, & Suicide @ItGetsBetter #itgetsbetter

Homosexuality is a hot topic politically and religiously. It leads to heated debates and high emotions. Those debates and emotions can also lead to condemnation (and the Bible tells us not to condemn). As a psychologist, I have seen the effects of condemnation from other people in a variety of settings. It never turns out well. It is not a motivator.


As many people have heard, there has been increased attention to suicides by gay youth. For those of us in Southern California and even the conservative Inland Empire, this occurs here.


I primarily work with children, ages 8-13, in inpatient, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient programs. That means they are seen at a minimum 6 hours per week. Pretty intensive stuff, meaning they are dealing with pretty intensive issues. Even at that young of an age, I have seen kids who are in therapy because of the way other kids have treated them because of assumptions that they were gay.


One child in particular denied he was gay, but was teased because he was more effeminate than most others his age. Granted, some could argue this kid is in an early stage of homosexual identity development, but the point is the bullying and condemnation does not occur just those who are "out" or who are even necessarily gay.


Regardless of what one believes about the homosexuality being a choice or one's nature or sinful or normal, I would hope we can all agree that anyone committing suicide, contemplating suicide, or self-injuring is a tragedy. It's a particular tragedy when the whole process is so preventable. Remove the condemnation, and depression and suicide rates will drop.


In John 10:10, Jesus asserts, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" or "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." By participating in bullying and condemnation, we are participating in Satan's work of stealing, killing, and destroying, often quite literally.


Religion Dispatches recently posted an opinion piece about how American Christians are a central cause of homosexual suicides. It was for this reason that Jim Swilley of Church in the Now in Georgia came out as gay in November. Contrary to some reports, he was not seeking support of himself (he actually had hidden his sexual orientation for decades). Rather, he came out to emphasize to non-straight youth that life is not over by having a non-heterosexual sexual orientation.


There will, of course, be debate about how that will look in real life. However, the first step we all need to take in preventing suicide in gay youth and everyone in general is stop condemning. It Gets Better is a new organization aimed at proclaiming to LGBTQ youth that they do not need to commit suicide because despite whatever difficulties are going on right now, life will get better.


Life is difficult for everyone. We all face trying circumstances, tragedies, and traumas. When we condemn one another, particularly in times of struggle, we often condemn one another to literal death. For the true love of God and Christ, please remember to love people and remind everyone that it gets better.

Article Round-up 4/13/10

Here's some recent good articles:

Suicide and Facing Despair. This is an excellent article on suicide, depression, and the church.

Allow For Space In The Music. I just lectured on trauma and the dark night of the soul, and this hits a lot of similar points of my recommendations of validating people's experiences and sitting with the pain. This just says it a lot more eloquently. :)

Who Are the De-Churched (Part 2). A good follow-up to an earlier article. The focus on the problems with a moralistic emphasis makes this read particularly worthwhile.

Going Into Full-Time Ministry. This does a nice job of explaining that ministry is not just formal ministry, like that of a pastor. In fact, everything we do is ministry.

Getting Back to Basics. A nice, short article reminding readers that ARE negotiable elements in theology and that we need to be generous with others.

Suicide & Sin

SPOILER ALERT: If you're not familiar with It's a Wonderful Life or Miss Saigon, you may not want to read this! :)

Suicide is a very controversial area. Some people advocate for euthanasia (AKA suicide when you're sick), while we can involuntarily hospitalize someone who wants to kill themselves with they are mentally ill. I deal with suicidal people on a daily basis. And this is not a one-time thought of suicide, the people are often chronically and severely suicidal. Even the kids with whom I work.

Suicide is often described as sin. However, the more I understand and work with suicide, the more I have come to challenge that idea. From my experience, the idea of suicide as sin comes from the assumption that people suicide because they do not see the value in their lives and want to throw that away, thus rejecting a fundamental, valuable gift from God.

However, that is not always the reason for suicide. It often is not the case. It's a Wonderful Life and Miss Saigon are perfect examples of suicide for other reasons. In fact, I would argue that suicide in those shows occur out of love for others.

In It's a Wonderful Life, George considers suicide to save his family financially. Everyone in the film agrees this is a poor choice, but should we really condemn someone when they are willing to sacrifice their life to help the rest of their family? Now, there are other reasons he considered suicide, which was a loss of hope, but still that was not the only reason.

An even more potent example is in Miss Saigon, which I saw for the second time at CSUF this weekend. In it, Kim kills herself in order to give her son the life she believes he deserves. This suicide had nothing to do with selfishness, hatred of life, or anything we usually condemn with suicide. Rather, it was pure love.

These kinds of examples kind of challenge our assumptions about suicide, I think. What say you?