Science, Faith, and Gender

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Yes that’s true, it is an ideal we must strive for, even though a times it seems we cannot progress. The confessional is an important tool to remind us of that in those times when we’re inclined by our fallen nature to stagnate.

However some conditions are much more serious than a bad habit. Wanting to kill one’s self over one’s gender dysphoria, should at least force us to pose the question “wouldn’t it be better to help that person to transition rather than have him or her perish”?

I think it would in fact be immoral to refuse to ask that question and simply condemn the sufferer to endure his or her fate, which is what many on the Christian Right would do. God gave us a conscience, and in conditions like this it would be a sin not to use it.
 
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OraLabora said:
Yes that’s true, it is an ideal we must strive for, even though a times it seems we cannot progress. The confessional is an important tool to remind us of that in those times when we’re inclined by our fallen nature to stagnate.

However some conditions are much more serious than a bad habit. Wanting to kill one’s self over one’s gender dysphoria, should at least force us to pose the question “wouldn’t it be better to help that person to transition rather than have him or her perish”?

I think it would in fact be immoral to refuse to ask that question and simply condemn the sufferer to endure his or her fate, which is what many on the Christian Right would do. God gave us a conscience, and in conditions like this it would be a sin not to use it.
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Agree with all of that, however doing the right thing does not have to include procedures that are questionable in their effectiveness as well as morality.
I know 2 people who have had surgeries, and neither one of them is better off, in fact far worse. One became suicidal when the surgery and treatments really did nothing. The surgery does not satisfy their search for wholeness.
 
goout said:
I know 2 people who have had surgeries, and neither one of them is better off, in fact far worse. One became suicidal when the surgery and treatments really did nothing. The surgery does not satisfy their search for wholeness.
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I think here I have to defer to the WPATH statistics. I don’t know when your acquaintances had their surgeries but over the years two things have improved: selection criteria, and surgical techniques. The current statistics show, for MtF patients, a “regret” rate of less than 1.5%, and a satisfaction rate (with the surgical result) of 87%.

In the same vein, some cancer surgeries have much lower success rates than the above. That does not mean that we deny those surgeries, if there’s a hope that they will either cure the cancer or provide an improved quality of life even if survival is not improved. A friend of mine died at age 55 of bowel cancer. He already had liver metastases at diagnosis, and the surgeon said that his anticipated survival was no more than 2 years. He still chose to undergo surgery so that he could have an acceptable quality of life for his remaining time, even though it didn’t significantly extend his life.
 
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Is it acceptable to commit a moral evil because one expects some perceived good to result?
 
What if not committing the moral evil results in a greater evil, such as suicide?

It is a moral evil to needlessly amputate a limb, I think anybody can agree with that. Otherwise we’d let someone with flesh-eating disease die because we refuse to amputate the diseased limb.

While truth may be objective, we live in a grey world, and the problem is the word “needlessly”. Moralists can’t seem to agree whether amputating the penis of a transgendered person (actually it isn’t amputated but rather “reconfigured” as most of the skin is preserved) is a needed, or needless act. The problem is that the penis is presumed healthy. However, the person to which it is attached, is not. So a physician is faced with a moral quandary of trying live up to his or her oath and “do no harm” (ignoring or refusing to treat a medical problem to current standards certainly is “doing harm” and is the main grounds for malpractice; medicine is a guarantee of means, not results).

I’m afraid we’re condemned to live with that ambiguity, given our fallen nature, and given that humans have free will.
 
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It seems rather questionable to me to resort to what amounts to physical bodily mutilation to resolve what is essentially psychological problem.

I read of one case in which a woman athlete transitioned to male, but she only had “top” surgery, not “bottom” surgery. The reason she gave was that at some point she (he?) might wish to bear a child.
 
I would agree if psychological support alone were able to cure the problem.

Alas, it is not.

Indeed somewhere between someone happy in his or her birth gender, and someone contemplating suicide because of their birth gender, there is a grey area. The closer one is to the former, the least interventionist the treatment should be. Those in the latter circumstance, probably need a much deeper level of intervention. I would always counsel the most conservative approach that helps the person live with his or herself, and indeed have done for my close relative in this situation.

In a somewhat analogous situation, surgeons will, if they can, carry out a “lumpectomy” to cure breast cancer.

But that does not mean that they will not carry out a full mastectomy if the cancer is too advanced for a lumpectomy, nor will they simply say “let’s just watch and wait to see what happens” if an early cancer is detected. It would be immoral to deny amputating the breast, and it would be equally immoral to deny treatment to someone with early cancer. What would be moral, would be to consider the most appropriate treatment for early disease; in the case of the transgendered, that would perhaps be living part-time in the other gender role, or psychological support.

There is evidence, BTW that this is not strictly a psychological problem, but is in fact an organic difference in brain structure. Scientists have located a testosterone receptor gene that is different in the transgendered, which makes their brains less sensitive to testosterone in utero, in the case of MtF individuals. In a male, a specific surge in testosterone in utero ensures the development of male physical sexual characteristics. It appears the brain is part of those characteristics.

While none of this is proven, it does point to an organic condition. Just as we no longer cast out demons for known psychiatric diseases, some day we may have more clarity on this issue as well.

The Church hierarchy would do well to keep an open mind on the subject, lest they be caught in another “Galileo moment”.
 
Well this has complicated beyond my understanding but, it seems natural to object to ‘the ends justify the means’:
OraLabora said:
What if not committing the moral evil results in a greater evil, such as suicide?
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It may be best to re-examine what evil is. I do not know the difference between normal evil and “moral evil”, I hope that is an accidental redundancy.
But evil is not in a result, and neither is good, not when it comes to our human powers.
Only ideas, desires, and intentions, and actions based on said things, can be evil.
Outcomes, material objects, and accidents are indifferent.
Let me know if I’m wrong here.

The difference between martyrdom and suicide are love for God and his will, and rejection of God and his will.
The difference between bodily mutilation by surgery and human preservation by surgery are the same.

Regarding your comment on a “Galileo moment”, it seems reasonable to me to put an endlessly obnoxious man in a sort of penitentiary, if he is endlessly declaring his 10,000th hand discovery that our planet is not the mathematical center of the natural universe, thereby attempting to make himself it.
And while it would be well for everyone to open their mind, the purpose of doing so is the same as opening a mouth; to close it once again over something solid and substantial.
The Church does not leave decisions open, otherwise they are not decided. Choice, just like truth, is a natural separation from every other option, just like taking a road, or marrying a woman, or saying a certain word and not another.

If they ‘kept’ their mind open on the subject, they would not really have a mind about it.
 
Why the accusations? Why the politics? Long before this became the topic of the day, people had surgeries.
 
I do not see any accusations, and politics are unfortunately what bring on this kind of subject. I think OraLabora is being reasonable and considerate in his posts.
 
OraLabora said:
. Scientists have located a testosterone receptor gene that is different in the transgendered, which makes their brains less sensitive to testosterone in utero, in the case of MtF individuals. In a male, a specific surge in testosterone in utero ensures the development of male physical sexual characteristics. It appears the brain is part of those characteristics.
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So, are all cases of gender dysphoria examined to determine whether this receptor is present, before proceeding with radical sex change surgery? Is any attempt made to differentiate between psychological causes and physical causes? My impression is that the patient is simply taken at his word; the diagnosis is apparently self referential. In some cases it has been said that gender dysphoria can be “socially contagious.” Somehow I doubt that transgenderism will turn out to be the new geocentrism.
 
airitech said:
Gender dysphoria is a result of an individual feeling as though the physical assigned sex of their body doesn’t match up with their gender - that is, their internal awareness of what it is to be male/female/nonbinary and their personal gender identity.
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How can somebody who is born genetically male feel female? How can they even be aware what it feels to be female? They might imagine what they think it feels like to feel female, but how can someone be internally aware of something their body isn’t coded to be? It isn’t even a case of “I feel, therefore I am”, because how can you feel something that you haven’t experienced? Is it not a case of, “I imagine this is what it would feel like, therefore I am”?
 
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Stanz said:
I do not see any accusations, and politics are unfortunately what bring on this kind of subject. I think OraLabora is being reasonable and considerate in his posts.
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Thanks. I don’t see where I’ve offended either, but if somehow I have given offense to anyone, I apologize.

To answer your previous post, at some point I had to look past the theology and put on the hat of someone with a family member struggling with this issue.

A friend once linked me to this article:


This deacon’s experience is very close to my own. These are very real people with a great deal of suffering.
JimG said:
So, are all cases of gender dysphoria examined to determine whether this receptor is present, before proceeding with radical sex change surgery? Is any attempt made to differentiate between psychological causes and physical causes? My impression is that the patient is simply taken at his word; the diagnosis is apparently self referential. In some cases it has been said that gender dysphoria can be “socially contagious.” Somehow I doubt that transgenderism will turn out to be the new geocentrism.
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It’s an area of research, and a long way from a reliable diagnostic test. I think as the good deacon’s daughter in the linked article makes clear, is far from self-referential. Deep depression and attempted suicide are not trivial symptoms of a “feeling”.
Brendan_64 said:
How can somebody who is born genetically male feel female? How can they even be aware what it feels to be female? They might imagine what they think it feels like to feel female, but how can someone be internally aware of something their body isn’t coded to be? It isn’t even a case of “I feel, therefore I am”, because how can you feel something that you haven’t experienced? Is it not a case of, “I imagine this is what it would feel like, therefore I am”?
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The research in fact points to their brains being patterned after the one of the gender they’re wanting to assume. It is not yet conclusive. It’s not that they “feel” female, from what I can gather. It’s that they feel a profound disconnect between what they see in the mirror, and what they believe they are. It’s much deeper than a “feeling”

I think what it is possible to determine is that this issue causes very real suffering.
edwest said:
Have you contacted the Church hierarchy?
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Yes, I have spoken to several priests about it, including the abbot of the monastery to which I’m affiliated as oblate, and who is the ordinary of where I usually attend Mass. I have not gone further up the chain of command if that’s what you mean.
 
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OraLabora said:
It’s that they feel a profound disconnect between what they see in the mirror, and what they believe they are.
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If a person believes they are something other than what they biologically are, is that not a delusion? People believe many things, and often hold these beliefs deeply, that doesn’t mean that these beliefs are reality, particularly when biological reality indicates otherwise.
 
“chain of command” I see. Have you read any material from those higher up? If so, what are your thoughts?
 
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Brendan_64 said:
If a person believes they are something other than what they biologically are, is that not a delusion? People believe many things, and often hold these beliefs deeply, that doesn’t mean that these beliefs are reality, particularly when biological reality indicates otherwise.
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Question for you: if someone has a brain that has the biological structure of the opposite sex from their birth gender, is that a delusion, or an organic anomaly similar to being born intersex?

I’m really reluctant to accuse someone of having a “delusion” in this instance. I prefer to keep an open mind and let the science do its thing.
edwest said:
“chain of command” I see. Have you read any material from those higher up? If so, what are your thought?
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Yes I have. My thoughts are that in some cases, the Church is jumping to conclusions, and in others, it doesn’t fully understand the reality of the transgendered. Or rather I should say, some people in the Church because the Church herself is the immaculate bride of Christ.

However my experience has also been that down here at ground level, many of the Church’s clergy are very open-minded and merciful about the issue, probably because they’re not operating theologically, but pastorally. They see the pain, they see the hurt. At one of the churches that our schola regularly chants at, the sacristan is a MtF transsexual. So the reality in the trenches seems quite different than in the rarified air of a theology lecture hall.

And for that, given my own family circumstances, I am very grateful, as some of those pastors have been very supportive.

A note to all, I am not identifying the family member openly as it is a deeply private matter and I don’t want to post anything identifying (no, it is not me in case you’re wondering!). But I’d be happy to reply to any PM about the issue.
 
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