As a member of his local Presbyterian church in Gettysburg, Ryan Conklin definitely considers himself to be a religious person. However, based on some of the things he has said and done, one might say he is not fully "practicing". In fact, it actually surprised Baya Voce on The Real World Brooklyn when she first heard him say that he is religious. The circumstance that prompted Ryan's acknowledgment to Baya was a discussion with her about his views on Katelynn's gender reassignment surgery. Ryan told Baya that although he was sympathetic to Katelynn's situation, he didn't "condone" her action to correct her gender. He expressed a view that basically indicated that he believed people should suffer through their lives with whatever God had let happen to them, rather than allow medical care to rectify it. Sarah Rice joined in the conversation and tried to reason with Ryan, using comparisons with other physical abnormalities that were also correctable. Ryan didn't respond directly and stayed with the notion that his views are what they are. Baya looked on with a sad disappointment in hearing a person she liked use religion as a justification to allow people to suffer.
Okay, so how do fans of Ryan deal with such views? The good news is that the clues are evident that it's not so bad after all. He started the discussion relating how terrible he thought the idea was of letting go of a penis. So that alone, independent of any religious doctrine, was enough for Ryan to be strongly against any male-to-female surgical procedures. Then the other consideration for Ryan's views is that he believes that the gender selection made by God for you is the most important characteristic that defines who you are as a person. And because of that importance, it's immutable regardless of what the outside body looks like.
Strangely, Ryan didn't realize at that time that he was on target and so close to getting it right. The part he missed was that the gender in the mind was the God-given assignment and someone like Katelynn was not changing away from her natural born gender; she was emphatically embracing it. Being that close to the truth, Ryan will surely get it cleared up with someone like Baya to help put the last pieces in place.
It should be noted that Ryan has a definite bias towards male being the preferred gender, so when he talks about Katelynn still being a guy, to him that's a compliment. He really liked her and was happy to include her in his circle of guy friends. Therefore he is still "good" Ryan despite some unfortunate choice of words that appeared to support beating people with a Bible.
