Not long after condemning Christian pastors for not wanting drag queens at their Christmas parade, PBS has managed to outdo themselves on Tuesday by claiming that the Bible teaches that there is nothing wrong with transitioning four-year olds.
A summary for the Independent Lens: Mama Bears documentary states, “Mama Bears is anchored by three intrepid women who found their relationship to the LGBTQ+ community at direct odds with their Christian upbringing. The protagonists are all members of the eponymous group Mama Bears. What started as an online network of conservative Christian mothers seeking guidance for their queer children turned into a boots-on-the-ground organization.”
One of those women is Kimberly Shappley who declared that “When Kai was about four years old, she prayed and said she would like to go home and be with Jesus and never come back. All of the things I had learned about transgender children having a 41 percent risk of attempting suicide came flooding back.”
A series of news clips from 2014 covering the suicide of 17-year old Leelah Alcorn was then shown, the last of which featured ABC’s Lindsey Davis reading from Alcorn’s suicide note, “Alcorn wrote she felt like a girl trapped in a boy's body but that her family ‘Wanted me to be their perfect little straight Christian boy.’ ‘The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was.’”
Shappley would continue to use this emotional manipulation to justify her actions and shame anyone who objects, “I read about Leelah Alcorn and what she wrote. ‘Christian parents don't do this to your kids.’ And I realized I had a four-year-old who would rather go be with Jesus forever than stay here and have to live as a boy one more day.”
She then insisted that she was forced to take the four-year old’s declarations about the future seriously, “You have to choose, Kimberly. Do you want a dead son, or do you want a living trans daughter?”
In an attempt to prove that her son really is her daughter, a home video of Kai wearing one of Shappley’s shirts was shown with the child intending to “sleep in it as a dress.”
That doesn’t prove anything other than an adult’s shirt being larger than a child’s, but back in the documentary claimed the Bible mandates her parenting decisions, “I started to realize that when science and the Bible seemed to conflict, it's either my interpretation of the scientific data that's wrong or it's my interpretation of the scripture that's wrong. And what I discovered is, when you really get down to the truth of both, they actually don't conflict.”
Trying to justify herself, Shappley continued, “The Bible tells us not to call unclean what He has made clean. So if science says that my daughter was born transgender, that means that the Lord knit her together in my womb that way. And whether religious people disagree with me or not, I have to hold firm in the truth. And that is that she was fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, and she was born transgender. I knew that I was choosing life for my kid.”
Of course, Shappley is treating her son’s body as unclean—hence the transition to something else—, but the real point of this documentary wasn’t to try to win a theological argument, but rather to shame other people by tying opposition to gender ideology and transitioning minors to suicides while mangling the definition of "Christian" and "conservative" beyond recognition.
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Here is a transcript for the June 20 documentary:
PBS Independent Lens: Mama Bears
6/20/2023
10:18 PM ET
KIMBERLY SHAPPLEY: When Kai was about four years old, she prayed and said she would like to go home and be with Jesus and never come back.
All of the things I had learned about transgender children having a 41 percent risk of attempting suicide came flooding back.
FEMALE REPORTER: "If you are reading this, it means that I have committed suicide," those words written on a Warren County teenager's Tumblr page.
MALE REPORTER: Leelah Alcorn, a transgender 17-year-old, stepped in front of a tractor trailer about four miles from her home outside Cincinnati.
LINDSEY DAVIS: In her note, Alcorn wrote she felt like a girl trapped in a boy's body but that her family "Wanted me to be their perfect little straight Christian boy. "The only way I will rest in peace is if one day transgender people aren’t treated the way I was.”
SHAPPLEY: I read about Leelah Alcorn and what she wrote. "Christian parents don't do this to your kids." And I realized I had a four-year-old who would rather go be with Jesus forever than stay here and have to live as a boy one more day.
You have to choose, Kimberly. Do you want a dead son, or do you want a living trans daughter?
[HOME VIDEO]
KIMBERLY SHAPPLEY: Isn't that my T-shirt?
KAI SHAPPLEY: Yes, I'm using it as a dress to sleep in.
BOY: Run for it!
KIMBERLY SHAPPLEY: Well, that's my T-shirt.
KAI SHAPPLEY: I'm going to sleep in it as a dress.
[HOME VIDEO ENDS]
KIMBERLY SHAPPLEY: I started to realize that when science and the Bible seemed to conflict, it's either my interpretation of the scientific data that's wrong or it's my interpretation of the scripture that's wrong.
And what I discovered is, when you really get down to the truth of both, they actually don't conflict.
The Bible tells us not to call unclean what He has made clean. So if science says that my daughter was born transgender, that means that the Lord knit her together in my womb that way. And whether religious people disagree with me or not, I have to hold firm in the truth. And that is that she was fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, and she was born transgender. I knew that I was choosing life for my kid.
