Bruce Jenner's Début as "Caitlyn"

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No, definitely speak the truth. But do it compassionately. We don’t have to be like most people who are either saying crude, mean things, or else wholly accepting the identity change.
I know you’re probably not directing this at anyone in particular but I have to say that I don’t know nor have I ever known anyone going thru this. If I have been unkind on this subject I
am truly sorry, it was not my intent. I have always thought that people in these situations have mental issues. I could be wrong. 😦
 
I know you’re probably not directing this at anyone in particular but I have to say that I don’t know nor have I ever known anyone going thru this. If I have been unkind on this subject I
am truly sorry, it was not my intent. I have always thought that people in these situations have mental issues. I could be wrong. 😦
‘Mental’ is a broad label. There’s evidence that it’s neurological (i.e.,physical), and not just psychiatric. But there’s so much we don’t know about it.
 
Who’s “they”?

It’s interesting that when people present views that are the opposite of many on this forum, people here say they are “pushing” something or that they have an “agenda”.

And yet,when people here try to promote or publicize or voice their views and beliefs to society, they are “evangelizing” or “speaking the truth”.
They are the people who push ideas contrary to reason and the Faith. Agenda can be used pejoratively. And in this context I do mean it as that. I would not however deny that I have an agenda or that the Church has agenda. I do hope that I am speaking the truth. I also believe those who promote the agenda that leads men and women to mutilate their bodies are promoting falsehood. This should be uncontroversial. I’m sure those who promote the agenda I am against think I’m wrong. Only one of us can be right. There is no sense in pretending we both can be.
 
In his interview with Diane Sawyer, he said he’s doing this publicly, in part, to help young transgendered people, for whom the suicide rate is far higher than the national average.
What no one talks about that the morbidity and mortality among persons with this affliction do not approach that of the general population after the surgery, either. It is very difficult to argue that this is a “cure.”

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3043071/

The other thing that is not talked about is whether it is ethical to surgically remove healthy body parts and to pharmacologically upset a person’s natural hormones in order to support the pretense that a physician can make a male into a female or vice versa.

Physicians can artificially feminize males. They can artificially masculinize females. They can get results by which a male can pass as a female and a female can pass as a male, as long as the person perpetuating the pretense is given the privacy to cover-up their true gender. They cannot change a male into a female or a female into a male. It is a deceit. How is perpetuating a deceit for the purpose of relieving a patient’s anxiety be considered ethical, particularly when the truth can never really be hidden from the patient?
 
I find this whole transgender thing confusing.
He competed as a male in the Olympics and was a sucess. He fathered 4 or 5 children as only a male can do, but yet says he still likes women although he doesn’t want to be a male anymore.
To me he always seemed the one in the family with any common sense.
He did seem kind and have a good work ethic, but he always seemed the odd man out. No pun intended. Have his sons spoken out in support of this does anyone know?
They were on the Diane Sawyer interview and support him.
 
‘Mental’ is a broad label. There’s evidence that it’s neurological (i.e.,physical), and not just psychiatric. But there’s so much we don’t know about it.
People whose gender is truly ambiguous are not common. We know that medicine can’t change a male into a female. Medicine can’t change a female into a male. There are many psychiatric disorders based on a confused sense that the patient’s sense of reality is true and reality itself is false. When is it ever ethical to encourage the patient to practice deceit on the rest of the world in order to relieve the anxiety caused by the confused patient’s faulty self-assessment?
 
Yes, it’s an insult to women who have real bodies which have gone through pregnancy and childbirth. Real faces which have weathered the storms of raising children and teenagers.
Your post reminds me of that one person, Thomas Beatie, in the news several years ago who was born female, transitioned to male, then had a baby. In fact, s/he had three babies. Very odd.
I do have sympathy for those with gender issues, but taking hormones and having your genetalia surgically altered doesnt change your gender…you still are how you were born.

Now, hermaphradites are a whole other thing. I can support someone who was assigned a gender as a baby but feels he or she is the opposite gender.
 
In order to be charitable, one has to lie?
Is it lying to call a woman Protestant minister “Reverend”?

Or simply a sign of respect?

What could possibly gained by insisting on calling a transgendered person by anything other that what they present themselves as?

In any event I wouldn’t be lying as I am quite prepared to give the benefit of the doubt that this is a real medical condition, and that the treatment, as imperfect as it is, would appear to be the only thing at the moment that has any hope of (modest) success.

One of the treatments for advanced prostate cancer, that is non-curative but which can prolong life or mitigate some of the pain is, btw, castration (either surgical or chemical). It is recognized as a valid if non-curative therapeutic treatment. There’s some legitimate debate on whether gender reassignment surgery is in fact “therapeutic”, but so far it is the only known therapy other than psychiatric care which has proven ineffective so there is a parallel with castration for prostate cancer which removes or shuts down healthy organs to treat a disease.

What is so wrong about being charitable towards the afflicted?
 
People whose gender is truly ambiguous are not common. We know that medicine can’t change a male into a female. Medicine can’t change a female into a male. There are many psychiatric disorders based on a confused sense that the patient’s sense of reality is true and reality itself is false. When is it ever ethical to encourage the patient to practice deceit on the rest of the world in order to relieve the anxiety caused by the confused patient’s faulty self-assessment?
I’m not arguing or advocating those things, so I assume you’re asking rhetorically.
 
Yes, it’s an insult to women who have real bodies which have gone through pregnancy and childbirth. Real faces which have weathered the storms of raising children and teenagers.
Yes, you don’t become a real woman just by taking hormones and telling Vanity Fair readers you are a woman. As for 65 year old Jenner I would tell him that we have earned our stripes by being wives and mothers and in some cases, grandmothers.
 
I’m not arguing or advocating those things, so I assume you’re asking rhetorically.
Yes…I should have clarified that in my reply to you. I meant to add to what you were saying, not disagree with it. Sorry about that.
 
According to Dr. Drew, the suicide rate is high also among those who’ve already transitioned.
That is what the study found…that is, that the suicide rate after surgery is still far higher than the general population. This is not a cure. It is not a ticket to satisfaction. It does not “right a wrong” and set the patient free.
 
I believe you are right. However, the accepted standard treatment of GID’s effectiveness is unsubstantiated. But since it’s highly politicized, it is steamrolling the naysayers. Never us mind the adverse or inconclusive data. Never us mind the substantial number of people who committed suicide after SRS, or the substantial number of survivors who regret their surgeries. Transgender “advocates” shout down inconvenient naysayers and cry “full steam ahead”, when they should be the first to warn of the dangers ahead.
waltheyer.typepad.com/blog/2013/11/20-regret-changing-genders-over-40attempt-suicide-and-even-after-surgery-a-large-number-remain-traum.html

This is a blog, which took the figures from the Guardian, so I don’t know if the figures are reliable. It says though, that 20% regret having the procedure, and near 40% attempt suicide. Very sad. I don’t know where other countries rank on mental health, but surely ours is near the bottom. So many people are suffering.
 
Is it lying to call a woman Protestant minister “Reverend”?

Or simply a sign of respect?
That strikes me as a particularly poor analogy, considering we call nuns reverend :confused:.
What could possibly gained by insisting on calling a transgendered person by anything other that what they present themselves as?
A conversation. Which is better than what’s going on right now, which is totally unscientific, and may be leading people to higher mortality rates, not lower.

I could turn it around and ask, Why are we so afraid of having an honest conversation about this?
 
I agree with you that it’s a very poorly understood condition.

But as I have voiced in this thread before, politics is steamrolling science here. Society may be enabling precisely the wrong thing. But there is no room for dissent now that the progressive p.c. police have entrenched themselves as they have.

It doesn’t matter if your interests are 100% pure, if your heart is full of compassion and zero bigotry. Bruce is Caitlyn, a woman, she, period. And anyone who says otherwise is an ignorant, judgmental relic of the cisgender patriarchy. 🤷
Ah, Havard. There are some voices I always appreciate hearing from regarding certain topics around here and yours is most definitely one that’s needed regarding this topic. And I agree that the issues here are complex. In general conversation with community members, I don’t hear much acknowledgement of what you’ve noted previously: that the suicide and depression rates for those who go through the surgery can remain high. It may well be that we’re doing a disservice to the transgendered by applauding every case like Jenner’s. I first heard about this complexity when listening to Women of Grace on EWTN. It was medically fascinating. Unfortunately, one of the associates there then went on to claim that Jenner (pre-surgery) was “milking this for all it’s worth.” I think that’s precisely the wrong approach to take. We don’t need to disparage the motives of those experiencing this affliction in such a way. Doing so does nothing to help us further understand any of it.

As for pronouns, I have a friend who’s engaged to someone who had sex reassignment surgery. And even my friend makes mistakes now and then when referring to her partner via pronouns. This is reassuring, since I still make mistakes referring to him, as well. I believe one should refer to another using the pronoun that he or she desires. I also think there’s a learning curve involved. I’d wager none of us grew up in communities where this sort of thing was normalized. And as many have noted, it has come up culturally quite quickly. I don’t agree with those who vehemently protest the use of “she” for Jenner. But I’m willing to cut some slack to those who (like me) probably forget and use the wrong term out of habit. Not indefinitely, but at least perhaps initially.
 
Yes, you don’t become a real woman just by taking hormones and telling Vanity Fair readers you are a woman. As for 65 year old Jenner I would tell him that we have earned our stripes by being wives and mothers and in some cases, grandmothers.
When explaining what she was about to undergo, Jenner told her children that when she was parenting them for years, it was as much “she” that was doing so as “he.” In other words, she believes that the “she” has always been part of her internally. It just wasn’t expressed externally. I’m quite sure she believes she “earned her stripes” internally, as well. Speaking as a woman, I don’t feel bothered or insulted that she is now going to call herself a woman because she didn’t go through the periods, the breastfeeding, the transition from attractive young woman to mature older woman. I am grateful, however, that I’ve always felt at home in my body and have never desired to be male.
 
If it’s a mental illness why would we want to use words like “vile” and “disgusting” to refer to it?
Well said…and here is the answer. There are very few places on earth where the mentally ill are not treated as garbage, weak, or something totally less than. I must at this point give credit to all of you and others who don’t treat them that way, but the rest of humanity that treat them so awfully even now, when we should no better, have completely missed the boat of Christianity. The way we treat the poor is not much better, again giving kudos to those of you and others who help the poor empower themselves.

The complete absence of love and empathy for those who suffer could itself be seen as a mental condition. Just MY two cents.
 
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