Overcoming Transgender Issues

[Zoe_Brain]

And to think a priest told me all males are xy and all females are xx.

He’s right 98.7% of the time.

Unfortunately, not 100%. And that leaves some people out in the cold, told they can’t exist, or sinning no matter what they do.

I know of people who are 47xxy who have fathered children. I know of people who are 47xxy who have given birth.

I know (personally) one man who’s 47xxy who identifies as neither M nor F. Another who looks upon himself as a normal man with an unfortunate genetic whoopsie that has made him sterile without heroic medical intervention. That means surgically dissecting his testes to locate sperm so his wife can fall pregnant. Most kleinfelter (47xxy) people are like that, men with an unfortunate genetic problem, but men in every way.

And I also know personally one woman who is 47xxy who had to have reconstructive surgery to look normally female, surgery denied her at a Catholic hospital supposedly on religious grounds.

It’s ignorance. And fear. And whether misinterpreting church teaching, correctly interpreting erroneous teaching, or using religion as an excuse for bigotry, I don’t know. I do know that I’m in dire need of forgiveness for the most uncharitable thoughts I think about some who act not just without compassion, but without a shred of simple human decency towards such people.

 

[aspawloski4th]

When Im told the evedence that I see with my own eyes and in person doesn’t mean anything. I get upset and start ignoring. when I see the counsleling they use to make one feel comfortable in their own anatomical sex cause suicide attempts I tend to get angery and upset. People are going to have to learn while there are manythings one can fight in the human condition, much of the time genetics is not one of them. I don’t care what anyone says anymore, as I get the means to transition to female Ill put them to use. I deserve to not have to feel awkward all the time, and to be able to feel natural with myself. Others don’t have to like it, they just have to live with it.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

If you want any help, I’ve enabled e-mail and PM’ing.

Although I’m not quite the standard TS case, I did transition, and can perhaps give you some advice. Worth what you pay for it, of course.

There’s more of us than most people realise, and you’re not alone in this.

Take care, Zoe

 

[aspawloski4th]

I realize Im not along. I have an exteensive network of friends for mutual support. Although I havee none here in grand rapids. Ill pm you sometime soon. my internet time is dicey. I work 2 jobs 6 to 7 days a week. Ill message you soon.

 

[aspawloski4th]

Ive found a Catholic chapel where I can attend Mass as my real self. Im going for the first time this sunday.

 

[Dale_M]

Congratulations!

I’ve prayed for you and wondered what has happened. Will you be going to mass with anyone? I wonder if the visit might be less intimidating with a friend along.

 

[aspawloski4th]

As most Sundays it will be with my wife. Funny thing where in guy mode I just get something out of the closet to wear on sunday which is pretty much the samething every sunday. I have my out fit already picked out this sunday. Ill also be doing my already bob hair cut into a pageboy, which is like a reverse flip. Ironically this is at a place in Grand Rapids called the Dominican Center. Which is housed in the building where my mother went to highschool. Called Marywood, it was an all gilrs school. Mom isn’t pleased with my long hair or the whole transsexual phenonem with me. While she is ticked off with my hair, I remind her that she had my hair past the shoulders in my 2nd and 3rd grade. Getting it cut short from that was one of the biggest downers in my life. By the way she had mine long because she still had alot of hippy still in her back then, she wanted all boys.

 

[wynnejj]

Boy, this whole thread has been an eye-opener for me. I now know not to be too judgemental about transgender operations. I have two friends who had sex changes - male to female. Both had had one offspring as a male before they dissolved their marriage and completed their gender transformation over time with medical & surgical procedures. Although I still think that what they did was very, very wrong, especially in view of their pre-existing marriages with a child, I have a little more understanding of the potential for a underlying physical condition that mitigates what I consider a heinous decision.

 

[Dale_M]

I’m so glad your wife is still with you on this journey! I would imagine many do not make it. Having such a wonderful woman in your life must be a blessing.

 

[aspawloski4th]

Boy, this whole thread has been an eye-opener for me. I now know not to be too judgemental about transgender operations. I have two friends who had sex changes - male to female. Both had had one offspring as a male before they dissolved their marriage and completed their gender transformation over time with medical & surgical procedures. Although I still think that what they did was very, very wrong, especially in view of their pre-existing marriages with a child, I have a little more understanding of the potential for a underlying physical condition that mitigates what I consider a heinous decision.

Ill be willing to place bets that if I dont go thru it in a timely manner. Ill be dead before 50 years old and Im 40 right now. I was to a doctor at a clinic for the uninsured last week and found my blood pressure was 180/110 , which the doctor thinks the causes for that are mainly in the non physical realm. Ive said it before here in these forums and Ill say it again, being male is more painful for me than the 33 kidneystones Ive passed and the one stone I had to be operated on to be removed. It’s the mainly underlying cause of my emotional impairment that started in preschool, its a big underlying cause of my general anxiety disorder and disthymia. When the body doesn’t match the soul and brain one can handle pretending it doe’s for so long only so well. I want to feel natural and not pretend anymore. That isn’t going to be lessened if I stay male.

 

[SilentKnight]

Wow, how did ten or so new posts get on here without me getting an email…??

Anyway:

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.

…As I recall, I asked Pathia to provide anatomical details so that those who were a part of the discussion would understand where Pathia was coming from, that it was “real life experience” talking, not “just” an opinion.

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.

I certainly confess to my own limits as readily as I breathe. But it kind of sounds like there still may be some misunderstanding in the realm of just how the Vatican reaches its “conclusions” and just where such conclusions fall in the hierarchy of truth, and thus I wanted to at least make an attempt to clarify…

The Vatican obviously does rely on science to analyze various things. In the intellectual realm, the accuracy of that analysis is subject to various factors that may, in the end, foster an inaccurate perception of “subject X”. But there is a difference between the Vatican’s perception of “subject X” and the Vatican utterance of official Christian doctrine. One of the most classic illustrations of this is the ever-popular common societal belief “back in the day” that the universe revolved around the earth. There were plenty of clerics that believed this wholeheartedly. But this false tenet of ancient science was *never taught by the Church *as being Christian doctrine. It was simply an erroneous scientific belief that many held, including many in the Church.

Furthermore, just because something is one way in one realm does not mean it is the same in another. Or, to be more specific, black and white, as an example. Is black the presence of all colors in one or the absence of all color? Same question regarding white…The answer depends on what subject you’re discussing: light or color. They are one in one field and the opposite in the other.

Another illustration: If I stand eight feet away from a wall and then walk to the wall, touch it and then walk away…Have I touched the wall? In one respect, the answer is obvious. Of course, I have. In another sense, though, it is far less obvious:

At some point in my walk to the wall, I will have walked half the distance to the wall that I was away from it before. Correct? In this case, this would mean 4 feet. At 4 feet, I will walk half the distance to the wall again, right? 2 feet. Half again - 1 foot. Half again - 1/2 a foot. Half again - 1/4 of a foot…Notice the denominator. Where does it stop? When I touch the wall? I never will, looking at the act from this vantage point. Eventually I will be 1/64th the distance to the wall, then 1/128th and so on into infinity. In one mathematical way of looking at my walk, I will never reach the wall.

All this to explain that while strictly on a biological level, the matter of “maleness” and “femaleness” may indeed fall on a spectrum, rather than a “one or the other” plain, transcendantly speaking, when it comes to looking at life from the vantage point of its meaning, only male and female exist.

As with all things in life (see above), one type of perspective may or may not match another type. Then, of course, the question becomes “Which takes precendence over the other?” In the case of science vs. theology, when the ultimate question is a theological one, it is theology that takes precedence. (And of course, it’s science that takes precedence when the question is a scientific one.)

Thus, it’s entirely possible and not “schizophrenic” in any way for Rome to suggest in one breath, for example, that only male and female exist and, in another, suggest, for example, that condition x leads to condition y when it really doesn’t. If what Rome is offering us is a scientific opinion or an utterance on a scientific issue, it can be wrong even while the doctrine that it teaches on the same issue is incontestible.

Does this help?

SK

 

[Joejohn39]

Aren’t we always taught that we should accept ourselves for who we are, and not try to change ourselves? And yet the politically correct answer for “transgenderism” is to NOT accept who you are and try to change yourself, even through major surgery. It’s just taking our culture’s obsession with things like cosmetic surgery to it’s logical conclusion, I guess.

 

[pathia]

Aren’t we always taught that we should accept ourselves for who we are, and not try to change ourselves? And yet the politically correct answer for “transgenderism” is to NOT accept who you are and try to change yourself, even through major surgery. It’s just taking our culture’s obsession with things like cosmetic surgery to it’s logical conclusion, I guess.

We do accept who we are, but our body is NOT who we are in the end. What are we, really. Do you see my body here in this forum? No, it is just my mind. Our mind is who we are more than our body.

Should we not fix birth defects then? Too extreme? What about say, dental work, or braces?

 

[Joejohn39]

We do accept who we are, but our body is NOT who we are in the end. What are we, really. Do you see my body here in this forum? No, it is just my mind. Our mind is who we are more than our body.

Should we not fix birth defects then? Too extreme? What about say, dental work, or braces?

Our body is the physical manifestation of our soul, IMO, and I am very skeptical about attempts to modify it to fit an arbitrary mental template. Birth defects are just that: defects, and I begrudge no one reconstructive surgury for such things as cleft lips or parasitic twins. But there’s a line between that and perfectly well-formed people worrying about their nose being too big or their breasts to small. Admittedly, it’s partly arbitrary but there is a difference between deformity and normal human variation. Braces? Again, if there is a clear deformity, but these days dentists seem to prescribe expensive braces for even the slightest variation in dental structure. Personally, I find a slight overbite kind of cute.

 

[pathia]

Our body is the physical manifestation of our soul, IMO, and I am very skeptical about attempts to modify it to fit an arbitrary mental template…

Um…that can be taken a very wrong way, very easily. I’m not saying you mean it, but the logic follows that people with defected bodies therefore have defective souls.

 

[Joejohn39]

Um…that can be taken a very wrong way, very easily. I’m not saying you mean it, but the logic follows that people with defected bodies therefore have defective souls.

That’s not, as you acknowledge, what I mean. Any imperfections in either a body or a soul are not instrinsic to that body and soul as there were meant to be, but only incidental to our fallen world. I’m also not saying that there is some kind of analogy of traits between bodies and souls. Perhaps it would be better to say that they are both different aspects, but instrinsic aspects, of the same being.

 

[pathia]

That’s not, as you acknowledge, what I mean. Any imperfections in either a body or a soul are not instrinsic to that body and soul as there were meant to be, but only incidental to our fallen world. I’m also not saying that there is some kind of analogy of traits between bodies and souls. Perhaps it would be better to say that they are both different aspects, but instrinsic aspects, of the same being.

If our world is so fallen and corrupt, why is it so hard to think a soul could not be misdirected or the body it finds be tilted towards the wrong gender?

 

[SilentKnight]

Our body is the physical manifestation of our soul, IMO, and I am very skeptical about attempts to modify it to fit an arbitrary mental template…

Joe,

As one who stands with the Church 101% on this, I am compelled to encourage you to understand that what we are talking about here in many (most??) cases is not arbitrary but very serious. We’re not talking about men that spend too much time playing with dolls who then get wild hairs up their rear ends and think, “…Hey, ya know what? I have an idea!” or women that watch ESPN for long periods of time and think, “Hey, man, I wonder what it’d be like…”

In addition to some other circumstances, we’re talking about human beings that are clearly male on the outside but convinced beyond the shadow of a doubt in their minds that they are female (and vice versa). Not in the course of one night during which they’ve had too much to drink, but over the course of many, many often painful years…Convinced. Not thinking, “Wellllll, maybe…” Convinced, knowing that they, in spite of physical appearances, are a woman or are a man.

Are there some “weirdo’s” out there who want to change genders as an assertion of their perverse (or just plain childhood-tortured)mind…probably. But that’s not what we’re talking about in most of these cases.

Just wanted to clarify.

It’s a rather dramatic but very real anomaly that, I think, deserves our careful study and a deep respect for those who suffer such a trial.

SK

 

[aspawloski4th]

Yes ! This did not happen overnight with me by any stretch of any imagination. I’m now 3 months from turning 41 and I can remember feelings like this I couldn’t put to words as far back as maybe 6 or 7. While I do remember things in my life from before that time, before that time I had no concept of sex and gender whatsoever partly because of mom and a little bit dad too. So it can be fairly said Iv’e been dealing with this for a 3rd of a century. Before knowing of feelings I had, I also acted in such a boy that the rough and tumble type boys my age at the time always hated me, hmmmmm. Iv’e said this before and Ill repeat it. On this subject ( as well as many others) there is a hyper over desire to make sex and gender simple, to over simplify it. If we are created in God’s image, and God is a complicated being, isn’t it logical that just maybe human beings would be complicated also, atleast more complicated than animals. Makes lots of sense to me.

 

[SilentKnight]

Ok, let’s take care not to let the pendulum swing too far in the opposite direction, though, either…

1. Just because something “is” doesn’t mean that it is automatically supposed to be. The girl that was born (I believe in India) with eight limbs not long ago. Normal, or anomaly? Club feet - normal or anomaly? Cleft palate, etc…
2. Is God a genuinely complicated being? Or is that just our perception of him. Is He rather, as the catechism notes, “infinitely simple”?
3. Point being that one could readily point out that God is many things that human beings are not. (Present everywhere, knowing all things, etc.)

Genesis tells us that God created “maleness” and “femaleness” (a.k.a. men and women) and nothing else. Any variations, therefore, are just that: Deviations from the norm, or what is supposed to be. (In this case, just to highlight, we’re typically talking about physical or psychological deviations, not moral ones…)

Peace,

SK