Yesterday, Ken Frederic of “Another View” penned an opinion piece about courage, religion, Josh Duggar and Caitlyn Jenner. Failing to use both the proper pronouns and her real name, Frederic referred to Caitlyn Jenner as Bruce Jenner — and unfortunately the problems did not stop there.

Frederic explained that choosing to use the word “courage” to describe Jenner’s very public transition from male to female “cheapens the real meaning of the concept,” and he goes on to say that courage, to him, is “choosing to do the right or moral thing despite the fear we feel or the danger we face.”

Transgender men and women, and in fact the entire LGBT community, face very real danger every day by simply expressing who they are in a society that actively seeks to victimize and silence them. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, anti-trans violence increased by 13 percent in 2014. 20 LGBT people were killed in hate-fueled attacks in 2014 — and more than half of those homicides were transgender women of color.

Looking at these facts, it is not an exaggeration to say that members of the trans community face danger, and that living openly as a trans person fits any definition of courage — including Frederic’s.

The reason Frederic may not have considered the danger of living as a trans person is because he, like all of us, lives in a culture that aims to silence the voices and stories of those who do not fit into our collective expectations of who men and women are supposed to be. When a person doesn’t fit into our established construct, it can make those who do fit feel uncomfortable. They try to look for reasons why the way that person lives is wrong, because they don’t like feeling uncomfortable or confused. Some even make assumptions, as Frederic voiced in his article, that trans people are “depraved,” “narcissistic” and participating in “self-mutilation.”

But regardless of what cultural messages are being sent to us about gender — or race, or sexuality, or anything else — a hate-fueled reaction that denies someone’s dignity and personhood is wrong, and only functions to create a more violent and oppressive culture for everyone. In order to change our society for the better, and to stop violence against all types of minorities, we need to be able to see beyond our own experiences and be inclusive of all types of people.

Frederic mentions Christianity and serving God throughout his piece, but true Christianity is about love, peace and understanding — not about insulting and name-calling those who are oppressed because you aren’t comfortable with their gender expression.

Interestingly, Frederic’s article was a lot more tolerant of Josh Duggar — a person who actually committed a crime and actually victimized a number of girls — than he was of Caitlyn Jenner, who didn’t hurt or victimize anybody. Jenner simply decided to live her life being true to who she is — which, according to Frederic, makes her deserving of some rather unchristian transphobic rhetoric.

Frederic ends his piece by describing what Christians are meant to do: serve God and purify their consciousness. I’ll end by saying simply this: If a person finds themselves more upset by the idea of a man becoming a woman than by a man assaulting a woman (or in this case, a teenage boy molesting a number young girls), they may want to reevaluate just how pure and Christian their conscience really is.

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Alicia Bane is Deputy Managing Editor of The Times Record