Sex-change vicar back in pulpit

[pathia]

This discussion is very informative and enlightening - I had no idea how many variations were possible from birth, and I can understand how one could be wrongly assigned a gender based on one of the discussed conditions, thereby necessitating the need from some hormonal or other therapy later in life when it becomes more evident that the initial decision was incorrect. Perhaps this is why someone like Pathia has not experience negative side effects from long-term hormone therapy.

However, doesn’t such a situation significantly differ from one in which a person is from birth, unambiguously, male or female, without any chromosonal or hormonal abnormality, and then decides to attempt to undergo a gender change? It seems in the latter situation, such surgical procedure is merely mutilation.

I also would be concerned that if medicine fails to recognize such a distinction, it may actually make it more difficult for someone in a situation like Pathia to find an actual cure or correction - science and medicine may just decide that any issues can be superficially corrected with gender reassignment surgery, when a more complete solution may exist, but its discovery not pursued.

I didn’t know about my oddities until I went out on my own and had tests done after I graduated from college. Initially I thought I was simply a transsexual, I thought what I was going through was what that was. It wasn’t until I found the internet and poked around my college’s library did I realize things were not exactly normal for me.

I was extremely shy, and never brought up my body’s oddities with my parents until I had moved out, they knew something was off with me, but I was relatively healthy and I never commented on it, so they left it as it was.

That’s why I’m prone to comment on transsexual posts here, because I thought I was myself one from about the age of 12-18.

In no part of any of the therapy for my transsexuality, in which I saw therapists, both catholic and secular, and priests did they ever discuss any medical tests. They instantly assumed it was ‘all in my head’ or part of my upbringing and tried to pin it on absent father (he wasn’t) or overbearing mother (she wasn’t) or the fact that I surely most of just had too many female friends in my younger years (I didn’t).

Given my own experiences, I just guess I give the ‘born that way’ theories a little more credit than most Catholics. This probably puts me against the Church’s teachings, but I have experienced things that no priest or scholar ever has, as far as I’m aware anyway.

 

[Magster]

I didn’t know about my oddities until I went out on my own and had tests done after I graduated from college. Initially I thought I was simply a transsexual, I thought what I was going through was what that was. It wasn’t until I found the internet and poked around my college’s library did I realize things were not exactly normal for me.

I was extremely shy, and never brought up my body’s oddities with my parents until I had moved out, they knew something was off with me, but I was relatively healthy and I never commented on it, so they left it as it was.

That’s why I’m prone to comment on transsexual posts here, because I thought I was myself one from about the age of 12-18.

In no part of any of the therapy for my transsexuality, in which I saw therapists, both catholic and secular, and priests did they ever discuss any medical tests. They instantly assumed it was ‘all in my head’ or part of my upbringing and tried to pin it on absent father (he wasn’t) or overbearing mother (she wasn’t) or the fact that I surely most of just had too many female friends in my younger years (I didn’t).

I can’t imagine how you must have suffered through those years and sincerely hope things are better for you now. But the headlines grabbing stories about transsexuality and gender reassignment surgery seems to beg the question - has all the attention given to such issues resulted in a clouding of the fact that there can be an actual, biological cause, such as you experienced?

 

[Kendy]

WHAT? :bigyikes: This is just crazy.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1052786.stm

Sex changes don't work period.

The anglican church is a joke.

 

[pathia]

I can’t imagine how you must have suffered through those years and sincerely hope things are better for you now. But the headlines grabbing stories about transsexuality and gender reassignment surgery seems to beg the question - has all the attention given to such issues resulted in a clouding of the fact that there can be an actual, biological cause, such as you experienced?

Intersex issues have been getting some attention too, not quite as much, but better than it was in the past.

“I’m a woman in a man’s body” or “I’m a man in a woman’s body!” is so much more sensational than having a series of complex diverse medical issues that cannot be explain in a few buzzwords for the ‘talking heads’.

 

[rpp]

I hear ya, but the fact is that some babies are apparently born with indeterminate genders and the doctors make the decisions as to what sex the child will be. And at time they decide wrong.
I know one transgendered person whose mother used drugs to be able to keep her pregnancy and this person grew up to be an eye surgeon. He had two children but always felt wrong somehow. He had the surgery to change to a woman and is now content.
I can’t imagine anyone going thru such surgery unless they are extremely unhappy.
Do you really consider it self mutilation when the person actually has good medical reasons for a reassignment?

Sex “re-assignment” procedures, be they just drugs or surgical, are always a form of self-mutalation. Period. End of statement. If a schizophrenic wants to rip out his eye, we hospitalize them. If a sexual deviant wants to get castrated or have a mamectomy, them we accomidate them. What is wrong with this picture?

What about this doctor’s two children and wife? How do they feel? What consideration did he have when he deceided to embark on the path of public humiliation for his family via public sexual gratification? Make no mistake, it is public sexual gratification, to have people think of him as a woman. I have the greatest sympathy for his family who are no doubt devastated by this. This doctor certainly deserves our prayers.

And , no, I will no consider credible any statement that says his kids were okay with daddy trying to turn himself into mommy. To even suggest this demonstrates either a blindness to reality, or that the story described is less than accurate.

 

[Holly3278]

That is just sickening and crazy. What further depths will the Church of England sink to?

 

[pathia]

Sex “re-assignment” procedures, be they just drugs or surgical, are always a form of self-mutalation. Period. End of statement. If a schizophrenic wants to rip out his eye, we hospitalize them. If a sexual deviant wants to get castrated or have a mastectomy, them we accommodate them. What is wrong with this picture?

I was repeatedly hospitalized due to my suicidal tendencies and my compulsive cutting of myself. I was on many different kinds of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. I went through eight years of therapy and praying to God, none of that worked on me.

Once I found out about my oddities I started with testosterone, I only became worse. Then I tried estrogen and within three months I had settled, my failing grades turned around into a 3.5+ GPA and I actually came to have a social life.

What’s a worse sin, ‘mutilation’ or suicide? One or the other. Those were my only choices. I’d be dead if I hadn’t decided. I’m not prepared to make statements as black and white as you are here.

 

[rpp]

I was repeatedly hospitalized due to my suicidal tendencies and my compulsive cutting of myself. I was on many different kinds of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. I went through eight years of therapy and praying to God, none of that worked on me.

Once I found out about my oddities I started with testosterone, I only became worse. Then I tried estrogen and within three months I had settled, my failing grades turned around into a 3.5+ GPA and I actually came to have a social life.

What’s a worse sin, ‘mutilation’ or suicide? One or the other. Those were my only choices. I’d be dead if I hadn’t decided. I’m not prepared to make statements as black and white as you are here.

I am very sad that you have had this terrible experience. However, suffering from some type of a disease, be it physical or mental, aquired or genetic, is just that, a disease. For many who suffer as you have, the medical community has been hijacked.

You are told that sexual deviancy is not a disease or even a condition, instead they say, “That is the way you were born so embrace it! We will give you some drugs that will change you around even more. We will give you some really ‘good’ counseling that will tell you all the morality of past ages does not apply to you.”

It is a big lie. That you have a terrible, even debilitating condition is certainly clear to you. I do not have all the answers, but I do know that too often, the medical community is happy to give in to the whims of a patient suffereing from some form of sexual deviancy rather than genuinely help them. We see this in the slavish devotion to the writeings of Kinsey, the “sexual researcher” in the 1950s who himself like to injure himself sexually.

Again, I am very sad you carry this burden. It is a suffering that, if you embrace the Lord and offer it to Him, can help make you holy. I urge you to do this, to reject worldy allurment, like we all should, and offer your suffering to God.

 

[pathia]

I am very sad that you have had this terrible experience. However, suffering from some type of a disease, be it physical or mental, aquired or genetic, is just that, a disease. For many who suffer as you have, the medical community has been hijacked.

You are told that sexual deviancy is not a disease or even a condition, instead they say, “That is the way you were born so embrace it! We will give you some drugs that will change you around even more. We will give you some really ‘good’ counseling that will tell you all the morality of past ages does not apply to you.”

It is a big lie. That you have a terrible, even debilitating condition is certainly clear to you. I do not have all the answers, but I do know that too often, the medical community is happy to give in to the whims of a patient suffereing from some form of sexual deviancy rather than genuinely help them. We see this in the slavish devotion to the writeings of Kinsey, the “sexual researcher” in the 1950s who himself like to injure himself sexually.

Again, I am very sad you carry this burden. It is a suffering that, if you embrace the Lord and offer it to Him, can help make you holy. I urge you to do this, to reject worldy allurment, like we all should, and offer your suffering to God.

I was never told any of this by anyone in the medical community. I am celibate. How is that sexually deviant? They told me I was going to develop brittle bones and osteoporosis within 10years. I REQUIRED this in one form or another, because I would die prematurely if I didn’t.

How is taking something that keeps me from dying prematurely ‘deviant’?

It seems to me you are telling me to reject my medical condition and simply let it waste me away until I die. Last time I checked no Catholics were telling cancer patients to stop chemotherapy.

 

[rpp]

I was never told any of this by anyone in the medical community. I am celibate. How is that sexually deviant? They told me I was going to develop brittle bones and osteoporosis within 10years. I REQUIRED this in one form or another, because I would die prematurely if I didn’t.

How is taking something that keeps me from dying prematurely ‘deviant’?

It seems to me you are telling me to reject my medical condition and simply let it waste me away until I die. Last time I checked no Catholics were telling cancer patients to stop chemotherapy.

Noit at all. When you have a serious illness, whatever the form, it must be treated. I base my statements on my experience with a former coworker. She was told, while in therapy after being raped, that she should be a man. After more than ayear with this therepist, she left her husband and two children and began living a lesbian lifestyle. Eventually she underweant drug and surgical procedure to turn her into something that resembled a man. She was very proud of the fact that the female therepist who first “identified her problem” was with her all the way and was instrumental in getting her into the “gender rea-assignment” program, paid for by the taxpayers of Oregon.

This woman, told me of her regret that her former husband got custody of her children and will not let her see them. Big surprise there.

Basically, this poor rape vistim was abused and victimized again by a therepist who was herself a sexual deviant bent on ruining the lives of others. That the rest of the medical community went along with this simply proves to me that most do not care.

Your situation may be different, I am no medical doctor.

I will say that if you are chaste, and you offer your difficulties to the Lord, that will help you increase in holiness. As it would for anyone who has any type of suffering.

 

[pathia]

Noit at all. When you have a serious illness, whatever the form, it must be treated. I base my statements on my experience with a former coworker. She was told, while in therapy after being raped, that she should be a man. After more than ayear with this therepist, she left her husband and two children and began living a lesbian lifestyle. Eventually she underweant drug and surgical procedure to turn her into something that resembled a man. She was very proud of the fact that the female therepist who first “identified her problem” was with her all the way and was instrumental in getting her into the “gender rea-assignment” program, paid for by the taxpayers of Oregon.

This woman, told me of her regret that her former husband got custody of her children and will not let her see them. Big surprise there.

Basically, this poor rape vistim was abused and victimized again by a therepist who was herself a sexual deviant bent on ruining the lives of others. That the rest of the medical community went along with this simply proves to me that most do not care.

Your situation may be different, I am no medical doctor.

I will say that if you are chaste, and you offer your difficulties to the Lord, that will help you increase in holiness. As it would for anyone who has any type of suffering.

I was sterile from birth, I can not procreate either way. The mixture of XY and XX chromosomes is more or less sort of ‘toxic’ to the development of eggs or sperm.

At this point, no catholic or Christian therapists or repairative therapy programs will have anything to do with me because of my biological errors. They simply profess to not knowing the proper course to follow with me and turn me down as a client.

 

[Kendy]

I was sterile from birth, I can not procreate either way. The mixture of XY and XX chromosomes is more or less sort of ‘toxic’ to the development of eggs or sperm.

At this point, no catholic or Christian therapists or repairative therapy programs will have anything to do with me because of my biological errors. They simply profess to not knowing the proper course to follow with me and turn me down as a client.

I am so sorry.