People with gender identity issues and sex change surgeries!

[mgreen77]

A person can have a penis and still be female…

So if two biological, xy males with male genitals become intimate, it’s considered heterosexual sex if one of them “identifies as” a female?

 

[StAnastasia]

So if two biological, xy males with male genitals become intimate, it’s considered heterosexual sex if one of them “identifies as” a female?

xy males have vaginas, not penises.

 

[RichP]

That seems like a silly definition. If it swim and quacks and waddles like a duck, it’s a duck for all practical purpose even if the genes say it’s a turtle. If phenotypically a human has all the requisite female bits, for practical purposes she’s a female and can mate with a male. I know there are XY females.

Understand that the turtle looks, swims, quacks, and waddles like a duck because the duck voluntarily took hormones and had surgery to make it resemble a duck. The turtle isn’t a duck because it was not born a duck…

Now if the turtle looks, swims, quacks, and waddles like a duck, and if people think it is a duck, and if the turtle believes it is a duck, then in realtiy is it a duck or is it a turtle that looks like a duck?

Females who are born with XY chromosomes are intersex and, by definition, do not have gender identity issues and should not be confused with transsexuals. In addtion, this condition is very, very rare and usually identify at birth, puberty at the latest.

And since the moral question is about sexual relations, you’d think the context used would be current sexuality, yes? Especially if the soul is genderless, since then there’s no “nature” to the soul, it just takes the form of the body it inhabits as it functions in the here and now, not as it did years or decades ago?

That’s why I was confused about post #1. If souls don’t have gender, then a post-op transgendered person is not in a homosexual relationship.

If souls don’t have gender or sex, what do they have? Or more precisely, what is the purpose or function of our souls in human relationships and sexuality? Are the body and soul independent of each other?

Do souls have gender? I haven’t seen any scientific papers on this question.

There probably aren’t any because science does not deal with the supernatural,… (and, for the most part, denies the existance of the supernatural…)

So if two biological, xy males with male genitals become intimate, it’s considered heterosexual sex if one of them “identifies as” a female?

Yes, because if you understand the issues that transsexuals are faced with, you would understand that one’s internal identity of who they are determines one’s sex more accurately and more real then genitals or chromosomes.

 

[irishpatrick]

Embryologists have varying estimates of miscarriage, that range between 20% and 50% of pregnancies. Many pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion, without the mother ever knowing she had been pregnant.

Okay, so then, what was your point?

 

[irishpatrick]

Understand that the turtle looks, swims, quacks, and waddles like a duck because the duck voluntarily took hormones and had surgery to make it resemble a duck. The turtle isn’t a duck because it was not born a duck…

Now if the turtle looks, swims, quacks, and waddles like a duck, and if people think it is a duck, and if the turtle believes it is a duck, then in realtiy is it a duck or is it a turtle that looks like a duck?

Females who are born with XY chromosomes are intersex and, by definition, do not have gender identity issues and should not be confused with transsexuals. In addtion, this condition is very, very rare and usually identify at birth, puberty at the latest.

If souls don’t have gender or sex, what do they have? Or more precisely, what is the purpose or function of our souls in human relationships and sexuality? Are the body and soul independent of each other?

There probably aren’t any because science does not deal with the supernatural,… (and, for the most part, denies the existance of the supernatural…)

Yes, because if you understand the issues that transsexuals are faced with, you would understand that one’s internal identity of who they are determines one’s sex more accurately and more real then genitals or chromosomes.

You hit upon my earlier questions (though in a different way). Is gender decided by DNA, or by physical construction, or does the brain decide gender? It seems from what I have read the Vatican falls towards genetics, though I am not sure those statements are formal teachings.

Do not forget, when all things come to an end when Christ returns, everyone gets a new body. I suspect that body will be very visually similar to what we had on earth, but we will all likely be genderless at that time. How could gender matter in Heaven in there is no sex, no marriage, no children, etc.? Of course, I could easily be 100% wrong…just my conjecture.

 

[StAnastasia]

Okay, so then, what was your point?

You said: “From a spiritual point of view, does God allow people to have these issues for a reason?”

I replied: "
Perhaps, but I don’t see any evidence for that. Does God abort 20-50% of all pregnancies for a spiritual reason? Perhaps. Perhaps not."

 

[StAnastasia]

Do not forget, when all things come to an end when Christ returns, everyone gets a new body. I suspect that body will be very visually similar to what we had on earth, but we will all likely be genderless at that time. How could gender matter in Heaven in there is no sex, no marriage, no children, etc.? Of course, I could easily be 100% wrong…just my conjecture.

If we are genderless, why will we have bodies at all? If there is no sex, marriage, or bearing children, why should there be eating, drinking seeing, hearing, walking, etc.? What would the purpose of physicality be?

 

[irishpatrick]

You said: “From a spiritual point of view, does God allow people to have these issues for a reason?”

I replied: "
Perhaps, but I don’t see any evidence for that. Does God abort 20-50% of all pregnancies for a spiritual reason? Perhaps. Perhaps not."

Ahh, got it.

Well, I think that quite often there are spiritual reasons for when women lose their pregnancies, and others time it could be something abusive they have done with their bodies, and others times their bodies just might not be able to handle it at that time. Either way those are trials and none of us gets through this place without our share of trials.

 

[irishpatrick]

If we are genderless, why will we have bodies at all? If there is no sex, marriage, or bearing children, why should there be eating, drinking seeing, hearing, walking, etc.? What would the purpose of physicality be?

Of course again this is my conjecture. There are more senses when one has a physical body. One can breath and smell and potentially taste and feel, etc…

 

[StAnastasia]

Well, I think that quite often there are spiritual reasons for when women lose their pregnancies, and others time it could be something abusive they have done with their bodies, and others times their bodies just might not be able to handle it at that time. Either way those are trials and none of us gets through this place without our share of trials.

Irishpatrick, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Miscarriages are by and large genetic accidents – the conceptus was incompatible with life. Some miscarriages do have to do with the uterine environment.

I don’t believe God “creates” intersexed persons or xy-females. It would be abhorrent for me to worship a creator who deliberately inflicted such awful and painful difficulties on creatures. What I do believe is that God endowed this evolving creation with autonomy, and that autonomy inevitably results in miscarriages, birth defects, cancers, etc. I believe God gives us the grace to cope with and grow through such misfortunes, but I do not believe God inflicts those conditions on us deliberately.

StAnastasia

 

[StAnastasia]

Of course again this is my conjecture. There are more senses when one has a physical body. One can breath and smell and potentially taste and feel, etc…

Irishpatrick, mine is conjecture too, of course. I just don’t see the point of eschatolgoical physicality if it is going to be truncated for eternity. A conception of eternal life that involves the senses but not their use for all things human seems bizarre.

 

[irishpatrick]

Irishpatrick, we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one. Miscarriages are by and large genetic accidents – the conceptus was incompatible with life. Some miscarriages do have to do with the uterine environment.

I don’t believe God “creates” intersexed persons or xy-females. It would be abhorrent for me to worship a creator who deliberately inflicted such awful and painful difficulties on creatures. What I do believe is that God endowed this evolving creation with autonomy, and that autonomy inevitably results in miscarriages, birth defects, cancers, etc. I believe God gives us the grace to cope with and grow through such misfortunes, but I do not believe God inflicts those conditions on us deliberately.

StAnastasia

I do not think that God creates people with problems. I think every single problem (medical, wars, etc.) are a result of sin. I believe the human race was perfect in the Garden, and sin caused a true decay both with people and within the entire created world.

I believe that God does at times intervene in the womb, be it for the advancement of life as He wants, or for the cessation of life when He feels that is appropriate. What the percentages are is not something I could even guess at.

 

[irishpatrick]

Irishpatrick, mine is conjecture too, of course. I just don’t see the point of eschatolgoical physicality if it is going to be truncated for eternity. A conception of eternal life that involves the senses but not their use for all things human seems bizarre.

Well a physicality without sex is still a glorious physicality.

 

[StAnastasia]

Well a physicality without sex is still a glorious physicality.

Well, I don’t know what the point is in the life of the resurrection of allowing some enjoyment of out bodies but prohibiting other enjoyment. That seems petty.

 

[irishpatrick]

Well, I don’t know what the point is in the life of the resurrection of allowing some enjoyment of out bodies but prohibiting other enjoyment. That seems petty.

Well, the joy we will experience in Heaven is so far beyond our limited comprehension that there really are no words to describe our happiness through eternity. Also, while sex may no longer be important in Heaven, so what? While gender may not even be important in Heaven, so what?

If we experience joy way beyond anything here, than I really doubt we will miss such things.

 

[StAnastasia]

Well, the joy we will experience in Heaven is so far beyond our limited comprehension that there really are no words to describe our happiness through eternity.

I agree – that’s why I prefer the apophatic approach in eschatology to the kataphatic.

Also, while sex may no longer be important in Heaven, so what? While gender may not even be important in Heaven, so what?

Precisely. But if sex and gender are not important, then neither are seeing, or hearing, or feeling, or tasting, or smelling.

If we experience joy way beyond anything here, than I really doubt we will miss such things.

Exactly!

 

[StAnastasia]

I do not think that God creates people with problems. I think every single problem (medical, wars, etc.) are a result of sin. I believe the human race was perfect in the Garden, and sin caused a true decay both with people and within the entire created world.

That’s not possible, because disease and de3ath antedated the garden of Eden. They have been features of life for at least the last three and a half billion years.

I believe that God does at times intervene in the womb, be it for the advancement of life as He wants, or for the cessation of life when He feels that is appropriate.

I do not accept a God like that.

What the percentages are is not something I could even guess at.

I got the figure from various embryologists.

 

[irishpatrick]

Precisely. But if sex and gender are not important, then neither are seeing, or hearing, or feeling, or tasting, or smelling.

Not true. Older people still have much joy and happiness and yet often they cannot have sex or not longer desire yet, but they sure do enjoy all their other senses.

God has created us and He has deemed we will have a pysicality through eternity and there has to be some element to our joy in that.

 

[irishpatrick]

That’s not possible, because disease and de3ath antedated the garden of Eden. They have been features of life for at least the last three and a half billion years.

I do not accept a God like that…

It is not only possible, it is a spiritually accepted fact of life. We have disease because we are fallen. If we had not fallen, we would not get sick, the world would be perfect and we would never die. One cannot reject that without in some large measure rejecting the Christian and Jewish faiths.

The Garden was a real place and Adam and Eve were our real first parents. Whether that took place fairly recently, or millions of years ago, we do not know, nor does it matter at all. Whether God used evolution to develop the human race also does not matter in the least. Real humanity, the real human race began in the Garden–no matter what God did with His creation prior to that. It is in the Garden that humans received souls.

God does interact with His creation, whether people accept that or not does not impact the truth.

 

[StAnastasia]

We have disease because we are fallen. If we had not fallen, we would not get sick, the world would be perfect and we would never die.

How do you explain the fact that disease and death existed for 3.5 billion years before humans evolved?

The Garden was a real place and Adam and Eve were our real first parents.

Where was it? And how do you explain the fact that there is no evidence in the human genome that the population of hominids evolving into Homo sapiens never fell significantly below 3,000 breeding pairs? That is, there is no evidence of a “founder effect,” in which the population of *Homo sapiens *fell to a single pair.

Whether that took place fairly recently, or millions of years ago, we do not know, nor does it matter at all.

This is an intiguingly odd mixture of biblical literalism and rejection of biblical literalism. On the one hand you insist on taking the Adam and Eve story literally, yet on the other hand you dismiss the genealogies of the Old Testament as non-literal. Which is legitimate? Or do you insist on a literal interpretation sometimes, and at other times when it is convenient you permit yourself to stray from that literalism?

It is in the Garden that humans received souls.

This is an interesting interpretation I’ve not heard before.

God does interact with His creation, whether people accept that or not does not impact the truth.

Absolutely right!