Does what we know about transgender people throw a wrench at Catholic teaching on sex and marriage?

[JohnTomHoc]

So at work we had a seminar on transgender people and etiquette when meeting a transgender person.

What I learned was honestly fascinating. We have long thought of gender as binary (male vs female), but it is scientifically very clear that gender is an analysis of four variables:

1. Assigned gender upon birth
2. Sexual orientation
3. Gender identity
4. Gender expression

What is also scientifically very clear is that these four variables can all be blurred, and have NO correlation with one another. And that is what explains the existence of gays (#1 not correlated with #2), transgender (#1 not correlated with #3 and #4), and intersex people (#1 is blurred and not correlated with #3 and #4). #2 can be blurred (bisexuality, transgender attraction), and #3 and #4 can be blurred (genderqueer, crossdressing, switching gender identity in one’s mind, etc.) And transgender people can also be gay or straight (all four variables not correlated).

My question then is,** if it’s scientifically very evident that our concept of gender, which we long thought of as binary, instead is expressed by a wide range of values for the four variables above, and humans do exhibit this wide range of values, then doesn’t that throw a wrench into Catholic teaching on sex, gender, and marriage?**

Doesn’t this also add ammunition to the idea that Catholic teaching is losing relevance in modern society, because the Catholic Church, with its insistence on upholding tradition, becomes hostage to its doctrines and cannot change according to what we now know scientifically?

There are not multiple genders, a fact which the early transsexuals and some today will still insist on. The transsexual experience itself is based on binary gender – the certainty that there are two genders, and that one somehow got slipped by anatomy into the opposite sex. ‘Transgender’ is a word that developed when the rigorous standards to determine whether someone had really and truly always felt like a female, and nothing but a female, were relaxed so that deep discomfort with gender role or anatomy could qualify for the hormonal & surgical regimen. That expansion of definition & relaxation of standards has been immensely destructive.

The whole 'genderqueer' business is part of the whole misdirection of the question away from the rare & very terrible condition of having a mind & sense of self which is the opposite of one's birth anatomy into the wilderness of re-definition. Transsexuals never wished to re-define gender; they just wished to change their anatomy to be consistent with the information their minds & emotions were dictating.

It’s a tragedy that the whole ‘re-definition of gender’ has entered into it, because that has thrown a monkey wrench into the Church’s consideration of a phenomenon which certainly doesn’t threaten the certainty that ‘male and female He created them’, but only adds a proviso that there is a condition in which a mixed message got sent sometime while the person was growing in the womb.

 

[CopticChristian]

No one is advocating castration here. And you’ve done my work for me. The kind of stuff I describe IS a scientific reality, and is not junk science after all!

**There’s nothing humorous or imaginative about it. It’s clear you lack Christlike compassion for trans people. Trans men really are men; trans women really are women. It is offensive to insist otherwise. It would be like calling a non-trans man a woman, or vice versa. **

How will the Church minister to transgender people when they believe its members don’t love them??

You assume that to be feminine, you have to give birth to babies. That is a misogynistic, archaic, and chauvinistic idea of what femininity is. Childbirth is not necessary or even sufficient for femininity. Many, many women do not wish to have children for reasons small and big, but that doesn’t make them any less feminine. Your idea is hateful and offensive to women.

Any women out there agree with me?? Maybe they’re not on CAF, since they’ve rejected Catholicism because of Catholics like you.

Let’s refocus this thread. How do we reconcile what is, despite the hesitancy of individual Catholics on this forum, the very real scientific reality of transgender people with Catholic teaching??

Lobo,

Why are they wrong? Because the Vatican says so? The Bible says little about the issue. The Vatican was wrong about geocentrism, why should we trust them with science?

It is not based on science that is why they are wrong. It is based on propaganda with propositions that have no basis in fact.

The DSM I is as follows:

38 MENTAL DISORDERS
000-X60 SodOPATHIC PERSONALITY DISTURBANCE
Individuals to be placed in this category are ill primarily in terms of
society and of conformity with the prevailing cultural milieu, and not only
in terms of personal discomfort and relations with other individuals. However,
sociopathic reactions are very often symptomatic of severe underlying
personality disorder, neurosis, or psychosis, or occur as the result of organic
brain injury or disease. Before a definitive diagnosis in this group is employed,
strict attention must be paid to the possibility of the presence of a
more primary personality disturbance; such underlying disturbance will be
diagnosed when recognized. Reactions will be differentiated as defined
below.

OOQ-x63 Sexual deviation

This diagnosis is reserved for deviant sexuality which is not symptomatic
of more extensive syndromes, such as schizophrenic and obsessional reactions.
DEFINITION OF TERMS 39

The term includes most of the cases formerly classed as “psychopathic
personality with pathologic sexuality.” The diagnosis will specify the type
of the pathologic behavior, such as homosexuality, transvestism, pedophilia,
fetishism and sexual sadism (including rape, sexual assault, mutilation).

The DSM II is as follows:

302.0 Sexual orientation disturbance [Homosexuality]
This is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily
toward people of the same sex and who are either disturbed by, in
conflict with, or wish to change their sexual orientation. This diagnostic
category is distinguished from homosexuality, which by itself
does not constitute a psychiatric disorder. Homosexuality per se is
one form of sexual behavior, and with other forms of sexual behavior
which are not by themselves psychiatric disorders, are not
listed in this nomenclature.

The DSM III is as follows

Transsexualism (302.50)
The essential features of this disorder are a persistent discomfort and sense of inappropriateness about one’s assigned sex in a person who has reached puberty. In addition, there is persistent preoccupa tion, for at least two years, with getting rid of one’s primary and secondary sex characteristics and acquiring the sex characteristics of the other sex. Therefore, the diagnosis is not made if the disturb ance is limited to brief periods of stress. Invariably there is the wish to live as a member of the other sex. In the rare cases in which physical intersexuality or a genetic abnormality is present, such a condition should be noted on Axis III.

People with this disorder usually complain that they are uncomfortable wearing the clothes of their assigned sex and therefore dress in clothes of the other sex. Often they engage in activities that in our culture tend to be associated with the other sex. These people often find their genitals repugnant, which may lead to persistent requests for sex reassignment by hormonal and surgical means.

To varying degrees, the behavior, dress, and mannerisms become those of the other sex. With cross-dressing and hormonal treatment (and for males, electrolysis), some males and some females with the disorder will appear relatively indistinguishable from members of the other sex. However, even after sex reassignment, many people still have some physical features of their originally assigned sex that the alert observer can recognize.
Cross-culturally, the Hijra of India and the corresponding group in Burma may have conditions that, according to this manual, would be diagnosed as male-to-female Transsexualism. The Hijra, however, tra ditionally undergo castration, not hormonal and surgical feminization (creation of a vagina).

No science was produced to cause any changes to the DSM IV or the upcoming DSM V. I am not obligated to accept the DSM IV or DSM V.

Protestants reject the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture. I accept the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture and Protestants refuse to accept the authority of the Church. I do not accept the authority of the APA or their DSM IV or V.

 

[JohnTomHoc]

Let’s refocus this thread. How do we reconcile what is, despite the hesitancy of individual Catholics on this forum, the very real scientific reality of transgender people with Catholic teaching??

There is psychological reality – that of the person who has always expressed the belief that they are the reverse of their anatomical sex – and then the scientific reality, which is not very well understood or well established yet; and the psych-therapeutic reality, which is linked to social & political questions and plays with those too loosely, without rigor & with a great deal of indifference to the destruction that their theories can cause.

I mistrust the psycho-therapeutic aspect having witnessed close up the danger of lacking an absolute, rigorous binary definition of transsexuality.

The psycho-therapeutic community is probably the most ill-regulated demi-medical community in existence.

 

[CaliLobo]

CopticChristian:

No science was produced to cause any changes to the DSM IV or the upcoming DSM V. I am not obligated to accept the DSM IV or DSM V.

Protestants reject the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture. I accept the Deuterocanonicals as Scripture and Protestants refuse to accept the authority of the Church. I do not accept the authority of the APA or their DSM IV or V.

You’re a medical doctor right? Why don’t you accept the DSM IV or V?

And what do you mean no science was produced to cause any changes to the DSM? You must be rejecting everything you find in scientific journals???

It’s scientifically proven that ~10% are left-handed. It’s scientifically proven that 4% of Europe is redheaded. It’s scientifically proven that 1 in 6 Americans are blue-eyed.

It’s scientifically proven that 2-5% are gay, and 0.25-1% are transgender.

It’s just how humans are distributed.

 

[CopticChristian]

It’s just how humans are distributed.

Lobo,

You’re a medical doctor right? Why don’t you accept the DSM IV or V?

Yes, and it is a farce so I reject it. I don’t have to accept what the APA says, the AMA or any other society. The practice of medicine is not bound by any society dictum or book.

And what do you mean no science was produced to cause any changes to the DSM? You must be rejecting everything you find in scientific journals???

Journal studies have value but are not gospel truths. There are some landmark studies people refer to but if you believe that a Journal publishes what anyone has to believe then you are mistaken. Physicians read and discern, reject or accept. The public that does not have the ability to do so believes if it is published it must be believed. What Journals do you read that prove that changes to the DSM were waranted?

It’s scientifically proven that ~10% are left-handed. It’s scientifically proven that 4% of Europe is redheaded. It’s scientifically proven that 1 in 6 Americans are blue-eyed.

It’s scientifically proven that 2-5% are gay, and 0.25-1% are transgender.

It is observed that a population is left handed.

It is observed that there are a proportion of redheads.

It is observed that there is a percentage of blue-eyed Americans

It is estimated that there is a population that calls themselves gay and another percentage of the gay population that identifies as transgender.

 

[St_Francis]

A certain percentage of the population has depression. A certain percentage is involuntarily infertile. A certain percentage has cancer.

Just because a certain percentage of the population falls somewhere on a spectrum does not make where they fall “normal” or properly functioning. And lest you say, well, but this cannot be cured, I would say, apparently neither can pedophilia (which is not to equate the two).

We have an idea of how a properly functioning human should be. And one of the things is that if they believe they are legless and want an operation to cut off their legs, we see that this person is ill and in need of help for his “identity issue,” not surgery to “fix” the lack of alignment between his thoughts and reality. He believes he is supposed to be legless and perceives his legs as horrible. They are not supposed to be there.

Why should the issue of transsexualism cause any change in Church teaching? We are supposed to treat each person with respect. That doesn’t mean we cannot take into consideration certain aspects of their situations.

 

[fix]

So is the whole antitransgender movement.

agreed.

 

[markeverett49]

So you support denying equal civil rights to transgender people? Why??

How will the Church minister to transgender people when they believe its members don’t love them??

You assume that to be feminine, you have to give birth to babies. That is a misogynistic, archaic, and chauvinistic idea of what femininity is. Childbirth is not necessary or even sufficient for femininity. Many, many women do not wish to have children for reasons small and big, but that doesn’t make them any less feminine. Your idea is hateful and offensive to women.]

Marriage can only involve a man and a woman. All sexual acts of same-sex couples are sterile. I don’t see anything in reason that compels one to claim that sterile acts are the equivalent of those which can produce offspring. I don’t think the rights of heterosexual fathers who wish to marry their heterosexual daughters are being violated either. The problem with ‘same-sex marriage’ is NOT that the parties may be gay (–and nothing REQUIRES same-sex couples to be gay anymore than there is a “straight” test for those applying for a conventional marriage license) but that what they enter into isn’t marriage.

No, I didn’t say one had to give birth in order to be feminine, though most females do want to give birth and it is something only females can do. Many transgender people are simply submissive and they mistake that for being female.

 

[jonathan_hili]

So at work we had a seminar on transgender people and etiquette when meeting a transgender person.

What I learned was honestly fascinating. We have long thought of gender as binary (male vs female), but it is scientifically very clear that gender is an analysis of four variables:

1. Assigned gender upon birth
2. Sexual orientation
3. Gender identity
4. Gender expression

What is also scientifically very clear is that these four variables can all be blurred, and have NO correlation with one another. And that is what explains the existence of gays (#1 not correlated with #2), transgender (#1 not correlated with #3 and #4), and intersex people (#1 is blurred and not correlated with #3 and #4). #2 can be blurred (bisexuality, transgender attraction), and #3 and #4 can be blurred (genderqueer, crossdressing, switching gender identity in one’s mind, etc.) And transgender people can also be gay or straight (all four variables not correlated).

My question then is,** if it’s scientifically very evident that our concept of gender, which we long thought of as binary, instead is expressed by a wide range of values for the four variables above, and humans do exhibit this wide range of values, then doesn’t that throw a wrench into Catholic teaching on sex, gender, and marriage?**

Doesn’t this also add ammunition to the idea that Catholic teaching is losing relevance in modern society, because the Catholic Church, with its insistence on upholding tradition, becomes hostage to its doctrines and cannot change according to what we now know scientifically?

I think you’re making a philosophical confusion between what sex some person is ontologically and what “gender” they perceive themselves to be. As the soul (psyche) is the form of the body, one’s physical constitution is ipso facto one’s sex. If, by gender, you mean a socialised construction of sexual identity and attraction, this does not in any way affect the Church’s teaching on marriage, any more than a socialised construction of zenophobia would affect the Church’s teaching on the wrongness of genocide.

It’s poor philosophy and understanding of human nature that is leading many to reject the Church. Why poor philosophy? Here is one example. If a person is biologically male, then he is a man. Now, you might argue that mentally or with regards to his gender, he is not but sees himself as a woman. The problem here is that it is a bad rule of thumb to use the less clear (in this case, mental states, which can be affected by psychosis or neurosis, or otherwise poorly influenced by nurture) to redefine the more clear (that is, the biological self). If this were the way to go, mental patients who thought they were animals or famous people who had long since died, would be unfairly institutionalised or labelled as “sick”, since the mental trumps the physical.

Another obvious example would be some suffering from anorexia. While their body might be withering away and malnourished, mentally they believe they are overweight. Clearly, in this instance, if you a girl’s mother who suffered from this terrible condition and were to say, “Well, you look really thin however I’ll give your mental state the benefit of the doubt and allow you to continue not eating”, we would think you are grossly neglecting your parental duty. I think transgenderism is similar, only because of poor philosophy surrounding the issue and the academic institutions that study it, many people are treating it wrongly.

The more reasonable response is that someone with gender-identity disorder suffers, well, from mental disorder! Strangely, nobody wants to admit this but is instead trying to redefine the physical. Very odd…

 

[jonathan_hili]

It’s scientifically proven that 2-5% are gay, and 0.25-1% are transgender.

It’s just how humans are distributed.

I’m not a medical doctor but I can spot a over-generalised statement when I see one! Is this a longitudinal study? I mean, how many generations and centuries has this study taken place to justify such a blanket statement?

Certainly, we can say that contemporary figures show that 2-5% identify as homosexual, but we also have to take into account changes in society over the last fifty years. Perhaps 100 years ago, less than 1% would have identified as homosexual, or more than 10%. The fact is, studies like this that purport to give a generalised account of human nature or sexuality can only give us contemporary data which is only slightly helpful.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I think you’re making a philosophical confusion between what sex some person is ontologically and what “gender” they perceive themselves to be. As the soul (psyche) is the form of the body, one’s physical constitution is ipso facto one’s sex. If, by gender, you mean a socialised construction of sexual identity and attraction, this does not in any way affect the Church’s teaching on marriage, any more than a socialised construction of zenophobia would affect the Church’s teaching on the wrongness of genocide.

It’s poor philosophy and understanding of human nature that is leading many to reject the Church. Why poor philosophy? Here is one example. If a person is biologically male, then he is a man. Now, you might argue that mentally or with regards to his gender, he is not but sees himself as a woman. The problem here is that it is a bad rule of thumb to use the less clear (in this case, mental states, which can be affected by psychosis or neurosis, or otherwise poorly influenced by nurture) to redefine the more clear (that is, the biological self). If this were the way to go, mental patients who thought they were animals or famous people who had long since died, would be unfairly institutionalised or labelled as “sick”, since the mental trumps the physical.

The more reasonable response is that someone with gender-identity disorder suffers, well, from mental disorder! Strangely, nobody wants to admit this but is instead trying to redefine the physical. Very odd…

Not dissimilar to what I said on the other active “transgender” thread, to someone who talked about “essence”:

*Originally Posted by Elizabeth502 *
I appreciate what you’re saying, but the problem is that essence is a philosophical term, not a biological one. That is, we can talk about the essence of femaleness and the radically separate essence of maleness because the physicality of those differences are the markers. Those are the indicators of “something deeper.” A key dynamic in Catholic philosophy is the difference between objecivity and subjectivity. We actually start from what is rationally objective; those are the parameters, even when we talk about something invisible such as God’s own essence. We derive our collective human understanding of that essence through the visible manifestations of God in human history, not merely through thought and imagination. Otherwise, all bets are off, and common definitions become impossible.

Private experience is not the same thing as essence. Our private experience can be colored by pathology, by misunderstanding, by desire, by pain, by lots of things. This is why many people can be of the same innate sex or “sexual essence,” and have very different interpretations of what, as individuals, it “means” to be male and “means” to be female. Their different experiences are valid. It’s their experience which shapes their identity as it relates to that inborn sex, even aside from culture. Culture does not dictate or limit an individual’s authentic maleness or femaleness.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=766907
(Pages 8 and 9 on that thread)

 

[jonathan_hili]

Good point.

Sadly, so many of the mind-molders in our society imbibe shoddy philosophy.

 

[CopticChristian]

I’m not a medical doctor but I can spot a over-generalised statement when I see one! Is this a longitudinal study? I mean, how many generations and centuries has this study taken place to justify such a blanket statement?

Certainly, we can say that contemporary figures show that 2-5% identify as homosexual, but we also have to take into account changes in society over the last fifty years. Perhaps 100 years ago, less than 1% would have identified as homosexual, or more than 10%. The fact is, studies like this that purport to give a generalised account of human nature or sexuality can only give us contemporary data which is only slightly helpful.

Jonathan,

The Essentialsim that clouds thinking gets distributed into all thinking…

If Essentialism=Born that way=immutable

then the notion that there is a statistical distribution is clouded by the underlying thinking that anyone is born that way. It is an inherent prejudice in thinking that then determines subsequent thought.

If you accept Essentialism then it is logical to conclude that humans are distributed in some percentage that is concrete thinking that does not equate to reality.

One form of thinking causes the rest to be jaded by the initial form of thinking. Essentialism is an absolute and all subesquent thinking is in the form of absolutes, black or white, this or that, this percentage etc…

 

[CopticChristian]

Good point.

Sadly, so many of the mind-molders in our society imbibe shoddy philosophy.

Jonathan,

Do a search for “Dichotomous Thinking”…Essentialism is that type of thinking…it is dysfunctional.

psychologytoday.com/blog/stop-walking-eggshells/201112/black-and-white-thinking-splitting-is-both-borderline-and-narciss

Black and White Thinking (Splitting) Is Both a Borderline and Narcissistic Trait

The Essentialist cannot fathom that Homosexuality is not born that way and with acceptance of that faulty notion it indicates that the acceptance is consistent with a thinker that may have other dichotomous thinking and that is why you get frustrated in dialogue…the insistence, it is this way or that…just chalk it off to dichotomous thinking and say thank you for that insight…

 

[markeverett49]

It’s scientifically proven that 2-5% are gay, and 0.25-1% are transgender.
It’s just how humans are distributed.

Even if that is so, it does not follow that same-sex “marriage” is possible.

 

[pnewton]

A person may believe themselves to be a potato, but that will no make them able to bud.

This thread is the worst case of the false authority fallacy I have ever seen. “Science proves…” “Science says…”

 

[Elizabeth502]

The problem with ‘same-sex marriage’ is NOT that the parties may be gay (–and nothing REQUIRES same-sex couples to be gay anymore than there is a “straight” test for those applying for a conventional marriage license) but that what they enter into isn’t marriage.

And note that throughout history, especially in the 20th century, homosexual men have often married heterosexual women for reasons of the former’s profession/public image. Sometimes they did have sexual relationships with their spouses, sometimes not. These arrangements have included all kinds of people from all kinds of fields (the performing arts, business, academics, and even government). They are/were legitimate marriages (and sometimes produced offspring). Such marriages have normally been entered into with mutual knowledge about needs, motives, and limitations of the marriage.

 

[markeverett49]

And note that throughout history, especially in the 20th century, homosexual men have often married heterosexual women for reasons of the former’s profession/public image. Sometimes they did have sexual relationships with their spouses, sometimes not. These arrangements have included all kinds of people from all kinds of fields (the performing arts, business, academics, and even government). They are/were legitimate marriages (and sometimes produced offspring). Such marriages have normally been entered into with mutual knowledge about needs, motives, and limitations of the marriage.

Yes. And this is important, I think, because it is WRONG for people to claim homosexuals cannot marry. They can and many have. The problem with same-sex “marriage” is that it is not marriage, not that the people are gay. (Where same-sex marriage is permitted, heterosexuals may enter into it—perhaps for economic reasons.) The real evil here is the lying about what marriage is. And again, the reason this is happening is that, since the widespread availability of reliable contraception, many heterosexuals have taken to thinking of sex in a homosexual way, which is to say, detached from procreation. (It is almost axiomatic that sexual perversions aim to bypass pregnancy!)

 

[markeverett49]

When I was young, I read an essay by Gregory Bateson called “Every Schoolboy Knows.” Among the truisms Bateson thought all children should be taught is that “science never proves anything.” He wasn’t against science, of course, merely aware of how cautious and provisional the claims of good scientists are. It is a scandal of our times that the “softest” sciences are prone to the most dogmatic pronouncements!

 

[St_Francis]

Yes. And this is important, I think, because it is WRONG for people to claim homosexuals cannot marry. They can and many have. The problem with same-sex “marriage” is that it is not marriage, not that the people are gay. (Where same-sex marriage is permitted, heterosexuals may enter into it—perhaps for economic reasons.) **The real evil here is the lying about what marriage is. **And again, the reason this is happening is that, since the widespread availability of reliable contraception, many heterosexuals have taken to thinking of sex in a homosexual way, which is to say, detached from procreation. (It is almost axiomatic that sexual perversions aim to bypass pregnancy!)

Good points well-put!