Overcoming Transgender Issues

[SilentKnight]

Did you read the whole thing?



SK

 

[Zoe_Brain]

Namely…?

That because there is a biological component to transsexuality, it is automatically normative?

It’s no more normative than congenital deafness.

The corollary though is that treating it via surgery to align body with brain is no more immoral than surgery to implant an artificial cochlea to give some measure of hearing, no matter how imperfect.

See Catholic News Service article

VATICAN CITY (CNS) – After years of study, the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation has sent church leaders a confidential document concluding that “sex-change” procedures do not change a person’s gender in the eyes of the church.

Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have undergone “sex-change” procedures are not eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a source familiar with the text.

The document was completed in 2000 and sent “sub secretum” (under secrecy) to the papal representatives in each country to provide guidance on a case-by-case basis to bishops. But when it became clear that many bishops were still unaware of its existence, in 2002 the congregation sent it to the presidents of bishops’ conferences as well.

“The key point is that the (transsexual) surgical operation is so
superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If
the person was male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female,” said the source.

Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Ill., president of the U.S.
bishops’ conference, sent a brief letter to U.S. bishops in October
informing them of the Vatican document and highlighting its
instruction not to alter parish baptismal records, except to make a
notation in the margin when deemed necessary.

“The altered condition of a member of the faithful under civil law
does not change one’s canonical condition, which is male or female as determined at the moment of birth,” Bishop Gregory wrote.

The Vatican text defines transsexualism as a psychic disorder of
those whose genetic makeup and physical characteristics are unambiguously of one sex but who feel that they belong to the
opposite sex. In some cases, the urge is so strong that the person
undergoes a “sex-change” operation to acquire the opposite sex’s
external sexual organs. The new organs have no reproductive
function.

The evidence is that Transsexuality does involve intersex - that part of the body, the lymbic nucleus of the brain, the part that determines “body map” and sense of which gender they are, is cross-gendered.

The letter is perfectly correct when it says that no amount of external surgery can change sex. That it is set at time of birth (actually some time before, at the end of the first trimester, we believe). The letter is incorrect in that it is no more a “psychic disorder” than congenital blindness, and that the sex infants are assigned based on non-neurological criteria is correct.

Men remain men, women remain women, no matter what surgery they may have had. But some men are born looking like women, and some women are born looking like men. This causes immense discomfort in those son afflicted. Once the body is aligned (at least as far as medically possible) with the brain, the discomfort is cured.

The Vatican document’s specific points include:

– An analysis of the moral licitness of “sex-change” operations. It
concludes that the procedure could be morally acceptable in certain extreme cases if a medical probability exists that it will “cure” the patient’s internal turmoil.

Good! Except the word doesn’t appear to have gone out, and we still have Catholic medical establishments refusing all treatment for transsexuals under all circumstances whatsoever.

– But a source familiar with the document said recent medical evidence suggested that in a majority of cases the procedure increases the likelihood of depression and psychic disturbance.

There is no evidence of this, and some 280+ medical papers saying the opposite. There is exactly one paper to this effect (1980 isn’t exactly recent), and the results of that have never been replicated. The data sets in this one study were carefully chosen, and contradictory evidence discarded, to reinforce a pre-determined conclusion.

Unfortunately, the pre-determined conclusion was that of Dr McHugh, erstwhile advisor on sexual matters to the Vatican.

This interrelationship of cultural antinomianism and a psychiatric misplaced emphasis is seen at its grimmest in the practice known as sex-reassignment surgery. I happen to know about this because Johns Hopkins was one of the places in the United States where this practice was given its start. It was part of my intention, when I arrived in Baltimore in 1975, to help end it.

And the evidence was selected accordingly. First the verdict, then the trial.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

One area I must applaud Dr McHugh strongly for is his opposition to genital surgery of intersexed infants.

We cannot know what gender they are until they can tell us, usually by age 5, often by age 3, almost always by age 7.

Cross-gendered behaviour by young children is emphatically not a reliable indicator, Only 1/3 of young children showing such behaviour are transsexual: the rest will grow up to be “normal” gays or lesbians.

As a member of several support fora for TS and IS people, I have to deal every day with boys who were castrated shortly after birth, and assigned as female, simply because their genitalia did not meet cosmetic norms. They are still boys, and surgery even at 3 months old cannot change that. The Church position though is that whatever is on the baptismal register is the Truth, regardless of the facts.

Where Dr McHugh contradicts himself is that he says gender is inate and may not match appearance (for intersexed infants), but that it always does match appearance (in intersexed and other adults). So surgery should be forbidden for them too, regardless of what they say - or what MRI scans do.

So boys castrated as infants who attempt to gain what amelioration of their condition that they can are labelled “psychically disturbed” and forbidden such treatment.

There’s a summary of the science, with references and quotes to medical and scientific evidence, at BiGender and the Brain. I invite you to have a look at it. It gained entry to “best of” collections of both medical and neurological web publications.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Did you read the whole thing?



SK

Oh, wow, that was from the REGISTER? How did that story get in there. It is good they stayed within Catholic teaching, but it is wrong to go assuming such things about your child that early on, going by a word here or a favorite color doesnt mean anything.

 

[SilentKnight]

You didn’t read the whole thing…



SK

 

[SilentKnight]

Zoe,

I want to express my appreciation for what appears to be a simple, straightforward presentation of the facts. Unfortunately, I do not know enough to get into a substantive discussion about the specific science of this or that element of the cerebral cortex or the hyperthalamide this, that or the other thing.

Working with what I do know…

It’s no more normative than congenital deafness.

The corollary though is that treating it via surgery to align body with brain is no more immoral than surgery to implant an artificial cochlea to give some measure of hearing, no matter how imperfect.

It certainly begs a very fundamental but also mildly complicated philosophical question about both what constitutes a human being and which of those elements - if any - play a more prominent role. That is to say, if a person is a man anatomically but a woman psychologically…Are they a man or are they a woman? Is it the body that is pre-eminent or the mind? Or are they both equal?

The letter is perfectly correct when it says that no amount of external surgery can change sex. That it is set at time of birth (actually some time before, at the end of the first trimester, we believe). The letter is incorrect in that it is no more a “psychic disorder” than congenital blindness, and that the sex infants are assigned based on non-neurological criteria is correct.

Also mildly complicated is the interplay between mind and brain, between thoughts/intellectual activity and physical cerebral properties. I think it’s generally assumed that the brain simply “is what it is” in any given human person, but this is not so - at least not as we grow from infants into adults. I don’t know tons about brain science. What I do know is that the brain of an individual matures differently based on the level of non-physical stimulation it receives, for example, as the child grows.

A child that cannot speak when he is eight years old, to illustrate, may indeed have a brain that actually looks and physically* is* different from that of a normal eight year old. But what we also know is that there is, let’s say, a 99% chance that the reason for this difference is not that this child just has a different brain than most others do. It’s because no one ever spoke around or to him when he was young. Therefore, the part of his brain that regulates speech never developed as it was supposed to. Consequently, he now can’t talk.

I, thus, question your outright dismissal of transsexuality as a psychological disorder for this reason. Really, I don’t know that it can rightly be labeled and “either/or” issue…?

Men remain men, women remain women, no matter what surgery they may have had. But some men are born looking like women, and some women are born looking like men. This causes immense discomfort in those son afflicted. Once the body is aligned (at least as far as medically possible) with the brain, the discomfort is cured.

Those are the allegations of some. The allegations of others are that the opposite is true. As you quoted…

But a source familiar with the document said recent medical evidence suggested that in a majority of cases the procedure increases the likelihood of depression and psychic disturbance.

To this you replied:

There is no evidence of this, and some 280+ medical papers saying the opposite. There is exactly one paper to this effect (1980 isn’t exactly recent), and the results of that have never been replicated. The data sets in this one study were carefully chosen, and contradictory evidence discarded, to reinforce a pre-determined conclusion.

I’m not sure of what your credentials are, but when I read this paragraph above and consider how carefully the Vatican studies certain issues these days, I can’t help but think that you’re maybe missing a substantial amount of information?



Your thoughts…

SK

 

[Mirdath]

It certainly begs a very fundamental but also mildly complicated philosophical question about both what constitutes a human being and which of those elements - if any - play a more prominent role. That is to say, if a person is a man anatomically but a woman psychologically…Are they a man or are they a woman? Is it the body that is pre-eminent or the mind? Or are they both equal?

Peter Kreeft wrote an excellent article titled Is There Sex In Heaven which touches on this subject. I’m distinctly not a fan, but I quite admired this piece.

Third Principle: Sex Is Spiritual

That does not mean “vaguely pious, ethereal, and idealistic”. “Spiritual” means “a matter of the spirit”, or soul, or psyche, not just the body. Sex is between the ears before it’s between the legs. We have sexual souls.

The first reason [to deny psychosomatic unity or to deny innate somatic sexuality] would be a reaction against what is wrongly seen as monosexual soul-stereotyping. A wholly male soul, whatever maleness means, or a wholly female soul, sounds unreal and oversimplified. But that is not what sexual souls implies. Rather, in every soul there is—to use Jungian terms—anima and animus, femaleness and maleness; just as in the body, one predominates but the other is also present. If the dominant sex of soul is not the same as that of the body, we have a sexual misfit, a candidate for a sex change operation of body or of soul, earthly or Heavenly. Perhaps Heaven supplies such changes just as it supplies all other needed forms of healing. In any case, the resurrection body perfectly expresses its soul, and since souls are innately sexual, that body will perfectly express its soul’s true sexual identity.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

You didn’t read the whole thing…



SK

Yes I did, did I miss something?

 

[Zoe_Brain]

Zoe,

I want to express my appreciation for what appears to be a simple, straightforward presentation of the facts. Unfortunately, I do not know enough to get into a substantive discussion about the specific science of this or that element of the cerebral cortex or the hyperthalamide this, that or the other thing.

You’re not exactly Robinson Crusoe there. It’s not as if it’s a common topic of breakfast conversation. It would be unreasonable to assume expert in-depth knowledge.

Your thanks are appreciated.

It certainly begs a very fundamental but also mildly complicated philosophical question about both what constitutes a human being and which of those elements - if any - play a more prominent role. That is to say, if a person is a man anatomically but a woman psychologically…Are they a man or are they a woman? Is it the body that is pre-eminent or the mind? Or are they both equal?

I was taught in the catechism that the resemblance of man to God was more in the soul than the body: that both males and females were in His image. And that the body and soul were one.

Anatomy may change, as the result of accidents or disease, but the soul remains unchanged. The body, as the temple of the soul, must be respected though, and not regarded as mere dross - at least, until death.

That’s the Catholic Official Dogma as I understand it, and am open to correction. I’m not Christian, but it is entirely compatible with the science as I see it. The personality is a process run on the hardware of the central nervous system, with body affecting mind, and mind controlling body. For the purpose of deciding what is correct from a Catholic viewpoint, dogma must be the basis, and if that leads to error, the dogma must be perfected.

I think it’s generally assumed that the brain simply “is what it is” in any given human person, but this is not so - at least not as we grow from infants into adults.

Correct. This is described in the"BiGender and the Brain" article - how gender is not so much formed, as discovered by social interaction. There are inherent tendencies towards either male or female emotional patterns, and by matching these patterns with others, we classify ourselves as boys or girls. Lacking such social interaction, the concept of gender won’t happen.

I’m not sure of what your credentials are, but when I read this paragraph above and consider how carefully the Vatican studies certain issues these days, I can’t help but think that you’re maybe missing a substantial amount of information?

The Vatican brought in an outside consultant with a very good reputation regarding all manner of sexual problems, Dr McHugh, in the mid-90’s. It over-rode it’s own scientists, notably Jesuit Father Urbano Navarrete who have made lifetime careers studying this particular area. It also discarded practices dating back to 1180 ( Peter Cantor’s De vitio sodomitico — or On Sodomy (d. 1192 AD)

The Lord formed man from the slime of the earth on the plan of Damascus, later fashioning woman from his rib in Eden. Thus in considering the formation of woman, lest any should believe they would be hermaphrodites, he stated, “Male and female created he them,” as if to say, “There will not be intercourse of men with men or women with women, but only of men with women and vice versa.” For this reason the church allows a hermaphrodite — that is, someone with the organs of both sexes, capable of either active or passive functions — to use the organ by which (s)he is most aroused or the one which (s)he is more susceptible.

If (s)he is more active [literally, “lustful], (s)he may wed as a man, but if (s)he is more passive, (s)he may marry as a woman. If; however, (s)he should fail with one organ, the use of the other can never be permitted, but (s)he must be perpetually celibate to avoid any similarity to the role inversion of sodomy, which is detested by God.

Unfortunately… Dr McHugh is a maverick, not a specialist in the area, and who as a very conservative person in a very liberal age has allowed his political belief to cloud his judgement. He has not published a single paper in the area, other than in religious and political (not medical) journals.

The Vatican made its best efforts, in good faith, to follow the best and latest scientific data. Their choice of independent scientific guide though can be accurately described as a crackpot in this particular area., while a well-respected and eminent scholar in others.

The Vatican has not re-visited this area since around 2000. Over 50% of the papers on the subject have been written in the last 10 years. They are available for anyone to read on PubMed, and other online sources.

I’m sure the Vatican will re-visit the area, eventually. They usually get things right in the end. I just hope it doesn’t take centuries though, as it has been known to in the past.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

Oh yes, my credentials…

Before May 2005, I knew nothing whatsover about any of this. I have no formal training at all. On the other hand, I have given talks to medical students about this, and am a member of Sex and Gender Education Australia, and am in contact with various specialists and professors of genetics and endocrinology.

I have to be, as my own situation poses interesting philosophical, legal, medical, social, and especially theological conundra.

1 in 30,000 people have either 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency (5alpha-RD-2) or 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency (17beta-HSD-3).

Such people look female at birth, regardless of chromosomes, and are almost universally raised as girls. But those with 46xy (male) chromosomes have a dramatic somatic change later in life, becoming male.

See 17β-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency: A rare endocrine cause of male-to-female sex reversal and Gender change in 46,XY persons with 5alpha-reductase-2 deficiency and 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-3 deficiency

These syndromes are well-understood from a medical viewpoint, but the theological implications are profound.

Natural changes in the other direction, from looking male at birth, to looking female later in life, are much, much rarer - 100:1 - and are not well understood. There are at least 4 separate etiologies, plus the various hormone-secreting cancers where the point is moot as the patient dies before feminisation really gets going.

In 1985, on the basis of the technology of the time, I was diagnosed at a Fertility Clinic as a mildly intersexed male. I looked unambiguously male, although a defective version. Fertility was compromised, but conception was not completely impossible - it would take medical help though. And in 2000, after many years of fruitless attempts, and some miscarriages, we conceived, and our son was born in 2001.

In 2005, as the result of some unprecedented and spectacular somatic changes, I had a rather more complete set of tests, involving ultrasounds, MRI scans, genetic tests etc. The corrected diagnosis is “severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman”. By that time I looked unambiguously female, but again, a defective version.

I have been extremely lucky regarding the social aspects. Our marriage is necessarily chaste, but we made vows “For better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part”.No cavils about which medical conditions counted, and which did not.

The legal aspects are still complicated, and the medical ones are still being worked through. Psychologically, I always knew I should have had a female body, and thought at age 10 that I’d have a normal female puberty. Which I did eventually get, but at age 47, not age 12. Not Man’s work, but a natural change.

Theologically, I’m still trying to get a straight answer. I’m not Catholic, but I made a solemn vow before God and Man when my boy was baptised into the Catholic Faith that I would raise him as Catholic to the best of my ability.

 

[SilentKnight]

…Wow, Zoe…

(Sorry, that’s about all I got for you right now in terms of a response… )

SK

 

[SilentKnight]

And another wow for Mirdath… Just got done reading the article.

Awesome!



SK

 

[Devets]

I was just about to come back and ask you if you could elaborate on your own situation here. Thank you. Would you mind mentioning what your bilogical situation is here also? Some are already aware, but some who read this thread may not be and the context may be very important to the discussion.

SK

Could you do the same please?

D

 

[SilentKnight]

Sure!

I am a man.

SK

 

[Zoe_Brain]

Sure!

I am a man.

SK

I think he wants you to take down your genes.

But seriously, many people who are Intersexed don’t know it. Apart from the rare 46xx males, there are many who are mosaics, usually 46xy/47xxy. The latter may be infertile or completely asymptomatic, with a tendency to be a bit tall.

This can cause problems in some jurisdictions.

 

[SilentKnight]

I think he wants you to take down your genes.

But seriously, many people who are Intersexed don’t know it. Apart from the rare 46xx males, there are many who are mosaics, usually 46xy/47xxy. The latter may be infertile or completely asymptomatic, with a tendency to be a bit tall.

“Don’t know it”???

So, we’re talking about someone who is - by all appearances - a completely normal man or woman who suddenly, later in life, becomes strongly convinced within themselves that they are the opposite sex?

This can cause problems in some jurisdictions.

Some?!?!?



SK

 

[Zoe_Brain]

So, we’re talking about someone who is - by all appearances - a completely normal man or woman who suddenly, later in life, becomes strongly convinced within themselves that they are the opposite sex?

Not quite. When I said some are Intersexed and never know it, I mean that their gender identity matches their appearance, but contradicts their chromosomes.

We’re talking about someone who is - by all appearances - a completely normal man or woman, who then gets informed by their medical team that they’re genetically and thus, in some jurisdictions, legally, of the opposite sex to the one they appear to be.

“But… I’ve fathered a child!”

“Yes, but genetically you’re 46xx with a translocated SrY chromosome. So here in Florida, you’re legally female, and your marriage is void. Sorry about that.”

That kind of situation.

As the Australian National University’s ALLY program so-called “expert” on Intersex issues, I have to deal with such cases. Usually girls of 17 or 18 who have gone to a fertility clinic to find out why they haven’t had their first period yet, and get told that they’re 46xy with CAIS.

Or that they have Swyer’s syndrome, so can give birth, but only as a surrogate mother. 46xy but streak gonads, more female than male, and an otherwise complete female reproductive system, despite being genetically male. No ovaries, no eggs.

 

[Dale_M]

“But… I’ve fathered a child!”

“Yes, but genetically you’re 46xx with a translocated SrY chromosome. So here in Florida, you’re legally female, and your marriage is void. Sorry about that.”.

And rightfully so, too. Darn lesbians - first they want to get married, then the next thing you know they start fathering children! Where will it all end??

 

[Devets]

Sure!

I am a man.

SK

Ok, so assuming by your statement you are not a trans-man, also assuming that you are not a psychologist or psychiatrist or other medical specialist with eperience in the field of gender disorders (or else you would have said?), then your “information” on this topic is probably comprised of 30% mass-media hype, 30% what you think your friends think and 40% what the church tells you to think.

I’m not sure if you meant it that way, but your question to pathia (why did a chunk of thread get deleted??) read like it was trying to discredit her. Yet your (likely ill-informed) views are just as strongly held, apparently above reproach and just as (or more so) damaging.

Which is why I wanted to know your background.

That said, I’ve read the discussion since my last post and I give you credit for having an open mind and a reasonable understanding of your own limits, if not the limits of the processes that produce Vatican doctrine.

D

 

[aspawloski4th]

Not quite. When I said some are Intersexed and never know it, I mean that their gender identity matches their appearance, but contradicts their chromosomes.

We’re talking about someone who is - by all appearances - a completely normal man or woman, who then gets informed by their medical team that they’re genetically and thus, in some jurisdictions, legally, of the opposite sex to the one they appear to be.

“But… I’ve fathered a child!”

“Yes, but genetically you’re 46xx with a translocated SrY chromosome. So here in Florida, you’re legally female, and your marriage is void. Sorry about that.”

That kind of situation.

As the Australian National University’s ALLY program so-called “expert” on Intersex issues, I have to deal with such cases. Usually girls of 17 or 18 who have gone to a fertility clinic to find out why they haven’t had their first period yet, and get told that they’re 46xy with CAIS.

Or that they have Swyer’s syndrome, so can give birth, but only as a surrogate mother. 46xy but streak gonads, more female than male, and an otherwise complete female reproductive system, despite being genetically male. No ovaries, no eggs.

And to think a priest told me all males are xy and all females are xx. The desire for simplicity in sex and gender is far too strong Ive noticed with lots of people. Ill repeat what I said before. By virtue of these two facts,God is a complicated being and we are created in his image. It’s only logical that humans are complicated too. So I embrace the compicated!