Science, Faith, and Gender

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OraLabora said:
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?
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Is that established science? Genetic identity is established science and is coded throughout the whole of a person’s being.

Of course we should have compasion towards people who are confused about their identity, but confusion is not the same as reality. It must be very painful to deeply believe you are not the person that your biology dictates that you are, but the current culture of accepting a person is who he or she personally identifies as does not solve the problem.
 
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Brendan_64 said:
Is that established science? Genetic identity is established science and is coded throughout the whole of a person’s being.
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It is ongoing research with strong indications, which is why I prefer to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions until the science is more conclusive. To call it a “delusion” is no more established science than the theorized genetic link is conclusive.

Moreover as the link I posted above shows, yes genetic identity is encoded, but it appears to be much more than just the X and Y chromosomes! The androgen receptor does appear to differ, and that has profound impact on brain development.
 
I’ve seen this before: the Church is jumping to conclusions and it doesn’t fully understand. Ground level is not a useful term. What do you think about Pope Francis on this issue? Do you think that only those “down in the trenches” have dealt with this? I don’t think it’s a good approach. Contact the Pope if you think it appropriate. Why wait?

The study you provided a link to appears to have some good information and perhaps other, more specific treatments can be found.
 
@OraLabora It gets to the issue of how we let pastoral experience affect theology.

Can we let it affect theology? What do you think. Sources of doctrine are Scripture, Tradiiton, Magisterium. Can experience ever affect doctrine?

A lot of how the Church responds to this issue and similar issues like homosexuality, etc., even marriage in general come from the “top-down,” that is, established doctrine.

I think that’s why a lot of the fuss over Amoris Latetia, because it suggested the need to apply doctrine bottom-up, from the real life experiences of people. IDK, makes more sense to me. But how do we have the standard on the one hand? It’s not like we accompany every single transgendered person to the current “ideal” (i.e., transitioning is sinful, mutilation, etc.). So does the teaching itself have to change?
 
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The Church is made up of fallible individuals, self included. I may be completely out in left field over this, but right now it’s a near daily reality in my life. So I struggle with it as best as I can.

Yes, the hope for me as well is that a better treatment may be found. But we’re not there yet. We have to muddle along the best we can with what we have. We used to castrate men with prostate cancer or ream out the prostates of men with benign enlargement, now there are drugs that are equally or more effective and don’t require mutilation. Maybe some day the drugs will improve to the point where they don’t also cause impotence, loss of libido and depression (which also occurs with castration).
RealisticCatholic said:
Can we let it affect theology? What do you think. Sources of doctrine are Scripture, Tradiiton, Magisterium. Can experience ever affect doctrine?
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I think that Scripture, and Tradition, have to be interpreted in the light of what they knew at the time. We have to extrapolate from that. That’s where the third leg of the stool comes in, the Magisterium. They are the ones doing the extrapolation into theology and doctrine. I’m not sure that Saint Paul recognized, for instance, that homosexuality was a deep-seated tendency. I rather think he just saw the behaviour that needed to be condemned. We now know more about the condition (but not nearly as much as we would like), and have nuanced the discourse somewhat.

I think it boils down to two approaches: a legalistic “follow the rules” approach, or a “we all fall short of the ideal but must continue to strive for it” approach. The culture I come from clearly falls into the latter, as do I.

I think the Magisterium, as my monk friend says, can establish the broad lines of what is moral or not, and then examine every case on its individual merits. I think that’s more or less what Amoris Latetia was trying to do with the divorced and remarried. Not re-write doctrine, but instead realize that while speed limits are in general a very sound idea, we don’t hand out speeding tickets to ambulances, fire trucks and police cars… that is, as we say in French Canada, “the exception confirms the rule”.
 
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So what would you say to someone who says that, following that reasoning, those rules do not correspond to anything that is objectively right or wrong?

It ultimately suggests that some things are wrong for some people while not others. For example, a straight male committing homosexual acts vs. a gay man committing them. I think anyone studying moral theology would agree that the latter is less free than the former to commit them. But can one’s condition ever make an “inherently evil” act actually not evil at all, but, even good for that person?
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
But can one’s condition ever making an “inherently evil” act actually not evil at all, but, even good for that person?
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No, I think the act is either right, or it’s wrong.

I think the condition acts, as you noted for the homosexual, rather on the degree of culpability than the nature of the act.

The Church teaches that civil divorce is always gravely wrong, but the CCC recognizes that the culpability is not always equally shared, and recognizes that recourse to civil divorce may in fact be tolerated in certain circumstances such as to ensure financial rights, the well-being of the children or in cases of violence or abuse.
 
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So when it comes to transgendered persons and transitioning, do you think the teaching that says that is objectively wrong is itself incorrect?

Or are you just saying that culpability is lessened for such people (which I at least agree with).
 
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OraLabora said:
It is ongoing research with strong indications, which is why I prefer to keep an open mind and not jump to conclusions until the science is more conclusive. To call it a “delusion” is no more established science than the theorized genetic link is conclusive.

Moreover as the link I posted above shows, yes genetic identity is encoded, but it appears to be much more than just the X and Y chromosomes! The androgen receptor does appear to differ, and that has profound impact on brain development.
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The question is: Keep an open mind, OK, but about what?

Let’s say that someone can have the DNA and secondary sexual characteristics of that unequivocally male or female and yet have a self-concept that they are unequivocally the opposite. If they have some brain chemistry that is responsible for their self-concept, does it mean that their DNA and secondary sexual characteristics are…what? “Wrong”? “Irrelevant”? Does it really matter if this happens a lot or only ever happened once? If the internal experience is unequivocally that they have a self-concept counter to their physical characteristics, from DNA through body type through any measurable physical or chemical characteristic, what difference does that make? Is it, “Well, good for you, Person X, because you have an MRI that shows everything else about you is irrelevant but bad news for you, Person Y, because it is ‘all in your head’ and everything about you is the truth.”

I think we need to think about what conclusions we are drawing from what evidence and why, not waiting for science or psychiatry to draw the conclusions.
 
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RealisticCatholic said:
So when it comes to transgendered persons and transitioning, do you think the teaching that says that is objectively wrong is itself incorrect?

Or are you just saying that culpability is lessened for such people (which I at least agree with).
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Neither in this particular case, IMHO. When I think of our obligation to have a “well-formed” conscience on this or that issue, I also include scientific sources as well (since I was trained as a scientist), and I think that the Church needs to do this too. So I guess I’m saying that the science does not yet permit one to completely form one’s conscience on the moral quality of the act of gender reassingment, and thus it’s still an open question.

If it becomes clearer that it is a morally grave sin after the science comes to some sort of conclusion, then I would say that it is an issue of culpability.

The sticky area though is that unlike homosexuality, the health care providers have a role to play, For a person to undergo gender reassignment, the cooperation of others is needed whereas the homosexual only needs a like-minded person, or pornography or fantasy to sin.

In that sense it may be more like abortion: while we can recognize that a young teen who is pregnant and is forced by a violent boyfriend into an abortion bears reduced culpability, the same cannot be said for the health care providers that carry out the procedure.
 
Here is something I found on the matter this thread turned to currently.
I don’t know much myself, but here is what seems to be an orthodox view:

www.catholicculture.org

The letter vs. the spirit of the law? That's not how the Psalmist sees it.

A lot of talk these days from the Vatican (I’d say from the apostolic palace, but the Pope has moved out) suggests that there is a natural, unavoidable tension between the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. The law is portrayed as an encumbrance, a burdensome obligation, while the...
www.catholicculture.org www.catholicculture.org
 
Well if anyone knew about the difference between the “letter” and the “spirit” of the law, it was Jesus who Himself rebuked the Pharisees for putting the letter of the law ahead of its spirit when it came to healing on the Sabbath.

And it was Jesus who said that the Sabbath was meant to serve Man, and not Man serve the Sabbath.
For even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which you have now received, let him be accursed in your sight.
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(quote from the article)

I have no quibble with this, but let it be the whole gospel, the one that also is a gospel of love and forgiveness and mercy, hope and healing.
 
Well, then here is someone who seems to have took the time to examine the whole gospel, concerning the matter.

The Spirit and Letter of the Law - Apologetics Press

All erroneous systems of belief share in common the fact that several “props” are necessary to support them. The fact that the belief system is false, necessarily implies that one or more of the props are false. But the mere presence of an array of props gives the appearance and the impression...
apologeticspress.org apologeticspress.org

I’m sorry that I cannot fully interact with your argument, but I am no true scholar.
I appreciate it if you also accept this as something worth looking at.
 
I will look at it; but right now am too tired and am retiring for the night.
 
edwest said:
Saint Paul condemned homosexuality? Where is that?
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Romans 1:26-27
26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
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As I said above I do not believe that he recognized homosexuality as a deep-seated tendency, but saw it as a behaviour that needed to be condemned.
 
I would at least agree that we cannot say he didn’t know what he was talking about, if it is indeed recognized as canon inspired scripture.
 
Jesus answered, “Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female” (Matt. 19:4, Gen. 1:27).

It is self evident that the vast majority of people born into the world are biologically natural normal males or females and that it takes a male and female to procreate children. In fact, from various studies of the sex chromosomes of liveborn children, the majority here translates to approximately 99.77% of humans with normal XY, male, or XX, female, sex chromosomes in every cell of the body. The remaining .0023% are various genetic abnormalities or defects in the sex chromosomes with various greater or lesser biological abnormalities which do not necessarily translate to gender dysphoria.

Accordingly, it’s plain that the .0023% of humans who may be born with genetic abnormalities in the sex chromosomes is not the norm or according to nature as God designed the biological binary sex of human beings into male and female. These are genetic abnormalities or defects of human nature in the same way that people may be born with other genetic and biological defects of human nature such as blindness, deafness, muscular dystrophy, and many others.

The vast majority of people who experience gender dysphoria and transgenderism are probably those born with normal biological genetic sex chromosomes. Studies have revealed that many factors come into play here not in the least are the psychological, for we are a soul/body composite, a child’s upbringing, external and cultural influences, etc., and we certainly cannot rule out demonic activity. Studies have also revealed that, normally, 80 to 95 percent of children with GD grow to accept their biological sex after passing naturally through puberty. Enforcement or approval of a child’s GD to the opposite sex of their born biological sex may be one of the leading causes of GD and it is a very grave evil and form of child abuse. Naturally, we need to treat children who may experience GD with love and compassion, but love and compassion with truth for their is no true love without truth.

As far as feelings or passions go, this is no argument to enforce or approve of transgenderism for our feelings and desires may be evil and contrary to nature and the Divine Law. For “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21). From the first sin of our first parents of the human race, namely, original sin which we all inherit from Adam and Eve and are conceived with, “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh” (Galatians 5:17). We all experience evil desires in ourselves which we are not to follow and act on which is to sin and goes against the good of our own nature and the love of God. “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live” (Romans 8:13). “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24).
 
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