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A screenshot of a Tumblr post from a user named demilypyro. The text of the post reads: “y’know some years ago I saw a conservative post something like ‘transitioning is worshipping yourself when you should be worshipping god’ and I was like hell yeah. hell yeah that’s awesome. I’m turning myself into someone worthy of worship and spiting god at the same time. this rules”.
My take is that people who say “transitioning is worshipping yourself” mean it like “it’s done for your own idea of yourself, not for your god-given one”.
It seems very unlikely to me that any transphobic Christian thinks transitioning is anything like “surpassing” God by being able to change oneself, because:
On the other hand, “it’s not God’s will” is given as a reason or excuse to oppose many things that can be seen as “unnatural”. More innocuous examples are the many religions and denominations which forbid cutting (some of) the hair, often with the reason that God gave it you so you should keep it how it is.
And while this principle generally isn’t applied consistently at all - (uncontroversial) medical interventions are surely as “unnatural” as transition, but are opposed only by the loopiest of religious people - that doesn’t mean it isn’t the principle behind any particular bit of thinking, such as opposition to medical care for trans people. (I think folks often call out inconsistencies of thought as if it reveals that the true reasoning must lie elsewhere… as if humans are incapable of holding inconsistent beliefs :P)
Oh many more people than trans people undergo changes, and I think it’s why I’m also drawn to tattoos, piercings, and body mods, as various ways of claiming agency of ourselves. I think learning, like you said, is a very neat example of that. There are many people that choose to live in ignorance of things and thus stagnate on their understanding of the world as a whole. Choosing to engage fully with the learning process of anything also feels the same kind of magic. Transitioning has also included a ton of learning, so I think it’s interesting linking those things.
Just as change is inevitable so is our ability to learn and adapt to that change.
I also find the argument itself interesting because I’d honestly call it easier to compare my transition to joining a religious order than self worship. After a long time seriously considering what was wrong in my life I humbled myself to accept that I needed to live an uncommon and difficult path that would completely change my life from what had always been expected of me.
It pushed me away from religion, but it also called me back to the divine.
Well religious types are gonna be mad at that too, of course! You picked the wrong religion!!
Ah memories of being a kid and being told I wasn’t a Christian because I was Catholic