I’m not sure if I would use the same classification as SSM here. I’d talk about stigma or discrimination when you don’t deserve it, and shunning when you do earn repugnance and rejection. And the two should not be conflated.

Stigma comes in two flavors: Existential Stigma and Achieved Stigma.

Existential Stigma: stigma deriving from a condition which the target of the stigma either did not cause or over which he has little control.

Achieved Stigma: stigma that is earned because of conduct and/or because they contributed heavily to attaining the stigma in question.

Let us decide for the purposes of this essay to call Existential Stigma bad. There is a case to be made that Existential Stigma, though cruel, can be beneficial for society, but let us agree that sometimes we will override what is the most beneficial for society in order not to be cruel to hapless individuals. A person born with physical deformities did nothing to cause his plight and can do little to change it.

Let us call Achieved Stigma, then, potentially good. A person who engages in stigmatized behaviors has the choice to refrain from engaging in those behaviors. They can choose, however hard that choice may be, not to be stigmatized.

Now this links back to a post from SSM yesterday about promoting transgender in primary schools, and some comments I made. I want to expand on this — not because I have anything particularly against transgendered pr homosexuals as people, but because the data is there, and it illustrates some of the qualities of a shunned population.

Firstly The behaviour is rare: if it is not rare it is no longer shunnted. This is from a review article in PLOS

Studies providing estimates of heterosexual activity and of the proportion of transgenders and sex workers among MSM, 2003–7*

		Heterosexual sex among MSM, lifetime No of studies (range of results) (%)		Heterosexual sex among MSM, last year No of studies (range of results) (%)		Proportion of MSM who are married No of studies (range of results) (%)		Transgender among MSM No of studies (range of results) (%)		Sex workers among MSM No of studies (range of results) (%)
Africa		3 (41–86)		2 (50–69)		2 (8–15)		1 (2)		2 (74–76)
East-South		1 (41)		2 (50–69)		ND		ND		2 (74–76)
West-Central		2 (46–86)		ND		2 (8–15)		1 (2)		ND
Asia		9 (25–73)		10 (11–98)		12 (3–42)		3 (2–63)		6 (12–64)
East		5 (50–73)		2 (11–52)		7 (7–29)‡		ND		1 (17)
South		1 (68)		2 (20–98)		3 (21–42)		2 (10–63)		2 (23–64)
South-East		3 (25–61)†		4 (40–70)		2 (3–13)		1 (2)		3 (12–58)
Caribbean		1 (78)		ND		1 (41)		ND		1 (45)
Eastern Europe and Central Asia		2 (44–53)		ND		1 (7)		ND		2 (5%–15)
Latin America		5 (25–64)¶		4 (8–30)§		1 (5)**		4 (4.3–19)		6 (10–31)
Middle East and North Africa		ND		ND		1 (16)		ND		ND
Total		20 (25–86)		16 (8–98)		16 (3–42)		7 (2–63)		13 (5–76)

From this, you can see that trans gender are in the minority of men who have sex with men: there are more that are married.  And the data for TG post surgery is poor… consider the following graph and table from a Swedish cohort post gender reassignment.

So, being Transgendered is bad for you. It’s fortunately rare, and there is a stigma attached. Earned or unearned depends on if you consider the condition is the choice of the person. And here TG is again useful. It’s generally divided into two types — primary, where the gender discomfort is from first words and actions, and secondary, when a choice to be a woman is made at a much later age. In most societies these groups are stigmatized.

However. there are some societies where this is not stigmatized. From the NZ online encyclopedia.

Fa’afafine are Samoan biological males who behave in a range of feminine-gendered ways. They have been an integrated part of Samoan communities for centuries. ‘Fa’afafine’ translates as ‘in the manner of a woman’. There may be equivalent identities for females who adopt masculine social roles in Pacific cultures, but evidence is scarce.
Numbers of fa’afafine

Numbers of fa’afafine are unofficially estimated to be 500 in Samoa and 500 in New Zealand.

In many Pacific Island cultures, the custom of certain males dressing and behaving as females is long-established and well-recognised. As well as the Samoan fa’afafine, Pacific gender-diverse identities include fakaleiti in Tonga, mahu in Hawaii, mahu or rae rae in Tahiti, akava’ine or laelae in the Cook Islands, vaka sa lewa lewa in Fiji and fiafifine in Niue. However, fa’afafine are the only group who have been studied extensively.

In the Samoan society, there was a place for this: and the Samoan culture has been overtly Christian for at least 100 years, accepting this as part of the culture. In NZ, it has been a problem since immigration, particularly as the gay movement wants to add them to the queer spectrum — which some Fa’afafine want, and others do not, for they do not consider themselves as gay — they are shunned in NZ, but not in Samoa.

And this is where the science starts to run out for TG. But within the broader group of people who are not exclusively heterosexual, there are some pretty sobering correlations.

Adverse event prior to 16	Level	N	Population prevalence of adverse event %b (SE)	Sexuality groups
				Heterosexual			Bisexual (n = 74) OR (95% CI)	Homosexual (n = 76) OR (95% CI)
				No same-sex behavior (n = 6857) %c (SE)	Same-sex sexual experience only (n = 281) OR (95% CI)	Same-sex sexual experience and relationship (n = 83) OR (95% CI)
Beaten at home	Yes	929	6.2 (0.3)	88.4 (1.4)	1.7 (1.1, 2.4)	2.8 (1.5, 5.3)	2.1 (1.1,4.0)	2.2 (0.9, 5.4)
	Testd				F = 6.0, df = 4 p = .0004
Other violence in the home	Yes	1346	10.6 (0.5)	90.7 (1.0)	1.2 (0.8, 1.7)	2.1 (1.1, 3.8)	2.4 (1.2, 4.7)	1.7 (0.9, 3.3)
	Testd				F = 3.4, df = 4, p = .008
Rape	Yes	588	3.9 (0.2)	84.7 (1.8)	2.5 (1.6, 3.7)	4.4 (2.3, 8.3)	3.7 (2.0, 7.0)	1.8 (0.8, 4.2)
	Testd				F = 12.7, df = 4, p <.0001
Sexual assault	Yes	923	7.7 (0.4)	82.6 (1.6)	3.7 (2.7, 5.1)	5.0 (2.6, 9.5)	3.1 (1.6, 6.0)	2.7 (1.4, 5.1)
	Testd				F = 23.8, df = 4, p <.0001
Other adverse event	Yes	2689	33.2 (0.9)	91.6 (0.6)	1.5 (1.1, 2.0)	1.8 (1.0, 3.1)	1.6 (0.9, 2.9)	1.1 (0.6, 1.9)
	Testd				F = 3.1, df = 4, p = .01
Cumulated adverse event scoree	0	5096	75.0 (0.6)	94.8 (0.4)	1.0	1.0	1.0	1.0
	1	1258	15.2 (0.5)	90.0 (1.1)	1.6 (1.1, 2.3)	3.0 (1.4, 6.2)	2.5 (1.1, 5.3)	2.8 (1.4, 5.5)
	2	659	6.7 (0.4)	89.5 (1.5)	2.1 (1.3, 3.3)	3.4 (1.5, 7.5)	2.4 (1.0, 5.6)	1.2 (0.4, 3.8)
	3+	358	3.0 (0.2)	80.2 (2.6)	3.7 (2.4, 5.9)	8.7 (4.0, 19.0)	6.2 (2.7, 13.9)	3.8 (1.5, 9.5)
	Testd				F = 7.3, df = 12, p <.0001
Overall				94.8 (0.4)

The experiences that many gay men and women experience, before 16 are simply horrible. I would not wish them on anyone. And this leads me to a kind of double conclusion.

1. Stigma and shunning is useful because it protects people from behaviour that may put them at risk.
2. But experiencing violence, particularly sexual violence, before the age of adulthood is very common, and no person should be held responsible for that.

Ignoring biology (which given the fluidity of that field, is wise) we are left with a bunch of people who are damaged, some of whom are in a stigmatized group. We need to both warn — this is risky, this is against morals — as we would about eating McDonalds or drinking riskily.

But we need to say that some of the acts you have had done on you are not your fault. They happened when you were a kid, when you were forced. But (and this is said in therapy, but this has not made it into the general conversation) you are responsible for your behaviour now.

Regardless of why.

Or what.

And here, the church has two duties: one is to find the truth (for these papers tend to not be easy to find, and much of the data is filtered through idelological lense, including the current NZ encylopedia. And then support the broken, the bleeding, and those who seek righteousness.

Regardless of where they come from, and regardless of how many “opression points” (or stigma points) they have. But for those who continue to preach sin, shunning may be the only thing they will listen to.