Story: "Trans teen regrets his ‘Frankenstein’ transition."

[LilyM]

HarryStotle:

So, yes, someone was indeed attempting to make the case that their “ brain is telling them their biology is not what it is .”

No. If you believe that, please find a biological male experiencing gender dysphoria who thinks his genitals are those of a biological female!

Their brain is not speaking to biology - not denying the self-evident. Rather, it’s as though the brain has an expectation of the body, which it can’t reconcile with the reality. The reality is not denied. It is just found to be irreconcilable which causes considerable distress. That at least is the theory (as I understand it).

Of course, that’s “quite wrong”

I am referring (as you probably will know) to your conclusion. It does not follow from what has been put to you.

There are numbers of people who are caused ‘considerable distress’ by the fact that their perception of themselves does not match with their physical/biological reality.

For one example, people who badly want to be amputees and are upset that their limbs are intact and healthy. The solution is not to hack off healthy limbs so that their reality matches their perception.

For another, people want to be or feel.that they are physically ill when actually they are fine (eg Mumchausen’s syndrome) and resort to all sorts of.stratagems.to fake/induce illness. The solution is not to allow them to continue to do so. In other words not to manufacture a physical reality which mirror the perception.

Why are these people, who are.likely every bit as distressed by their physical reality as trans people,. not treated in the same.way?

 

[OraLabora]

Why are these people, who are.likely every bit as distressed by their physical reality as trans people,. not treated in the same.way?

Perhaps because

1. they are not the same condition as transgenderism and don’t have the same cause
2. they don’t have the same level of mortality (suicide)
3. the conditions are even more rare, and there has not been enough data to establish protocols.

Some do, BTW, manage to self-amputate. I imagine with often disastrous results (blood loss, infection, shock).

 

[Rau]

The solution is not to hack off healthy limbs so that their reality matches their perception.

A rare but real condition. There are reports of persons who see their limb and cannot accept that it is “theirs”. Some have been know to seek its removal surgically. I read of a case where the afflicted sought to seriously damage the limb first in order to compel amputation.

If no known treatment (short of surgery) alters the circumstances of patients such as these - what is the “right” treatment?

Why are these people, who are.likely every bit as distressed by their physical reality as trans people,. not treated in the same.way?

Are they as distressed? I think you’ll find that limbs have been removed in severe cases of body integrity identity disorder.

 

[Thorolfr]

1. the conditions are even more rare, and there has not been enough data to establish protocols.

They’re probably just about as rare as the conditions of people who think that they’re felines or dragons.

 

[Thorolfr]

HarryStotle:

Look how colleges and universities are falling over themselves to provide safe spaces to even the ostensibly elite young adults. We seem to be creating a society of very vulnerable individuals who will do virtually anything to fit in or at least not stand out from the current PC culture.

The degree to which the young are being denied the information that they are resilient is a separate issue, but it is a contributor to the mental distress felt by many young people.

Yes, young people can be resilient, but it’s not a bad thing to make schools or colleges as safe as possible for everyone. And although a young person might survive what they feel is a hostile environment, this can still leave lasting psychological scars.

 

[LilyM]

LilyM:

The solution is not to hack off healthy limbs so that their reality matches their perception.

A rare but real condition. There are reports of persons who see their limb and cannot accept that it is “theirs”. Some have been know to seek its removal surgically. I read of a case where the afflicted sought to seriously damage the limb first in order to compel amputation.

If no known treatment (short of surgery) alters the circumstances of patients such as these - what is the “right” treatment?

Why are these people, who are.likely every bit as distressed by their physical reality as trans people,. not treated in the same.way?

Are they as distressed? I think you’ll find that limbs have been removed in severe cases of body integrity identity disorder.

“Known to seek”? Sure. Damage said limb themselves to compel surgeons to complete the job? Sure.

Go to a doctor stating that they have this compulsion and successfully have the surgeon agree to remove an otherwise perfectly healthy and functioning and intact limb? That would go contrary to everything I have ever known of medical ethics - and I have half a dozen medical practitioners in my immediate family, so I know a fair amount whereof I speak. Doesn’t mean there aren’t doctors prepared to do it - but then doctors have been known to behave unethically.

Again, why is the “right” treatment to deliberately mutilate a healthy and undamaged body? Which carries its own not insignificant risks (especially in those cases, and there are numbers including the article in the OP, where the patient still is distressed even after the surgery).

Why, especially, would such be moral for a Christian who believes that their body is a creation of God, made for His purposes, and not their own plaything made for their own contentment or pleasure or what have you?

 

[Rau]

Why, especially, would such be moral for a Christian who believes that their body is a creation of God, made for His purposes…

You are yet to suggest a better treatment… Should the person born deaf accept that predicament as representing a God’s plan for that individual or pursue an invasive treatment Eg cochlear implants, that provide to a degree - exactly what God chose to deny that individual; does this go against God purposes?

and not their own plaything made for their own contentment or pleasure or what have you?

Is this how you see the motives of the people (patients) concerned ?

 

[LilyM]

LilyM:

Why, especially, would such be moral for a Christian who believes that their body is a creation of God, made for His purposes…

You are yet to suggest a better treatment… Should the person born deaf accept that predicament as representing a God’s plan for that individual or pursue an invasive treatment Eg cochlear implants, that provide to a degree - exactly what God chose to deny that individual; does this go against God purposes?

and not their own plaything made for their own contentment or pleasure or what have you?

Is this how you see the motives of the people (patients) concerned ?

Many people have to accept medical.conditions that at present are untreatable, wholly or partially, or else where the only options are unethical.

Let’s say (extreme example) that tomorrow we found out that the only effective treatment for some currently untreatable cancer was to cut a limb off a newborn baby and for the sufferer to consume it. I’m assuming doing this to a child would be unacceptable, even if the alternative is certain death for the sufferer?

You see my point, that merely parroting that something is the only effective treatment is not the whole story. There are moral and ethical implications of the treatment to be considered. And there comes a point where a treatment, no matter how effective, or how terrible the disease, becomes morally and ethically unacceptable.

 

[PetraG]

Yes, young people can be resilient, but it’s not a bad thing to make schools or colleges as safe as possible for everyone. And although a young person might survive what they feel is a hostile environment, this can still leave lasting psychological scars.

This thinking is being challenged. It is impossible to get through life without psychological scars. More to the point, some students seem to have the impression that they will suffer permanent psychological damage if they are exposed to people who disagree with them. Let’s hope no one is arguing in favor of protecting incivility, but there are people who seem to think that people old enough to go to college are going to suffer harm if they are surrounded by people who think their thinking is wrong.

There is something between this:
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and this:
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Likewise, the two alternatives for those who have felt for an extended period of time that they don’t see the world as those of their sex typically do–namely, “you are weird, don’t be like that” and “well, maybe that’s because you have the wrong body for your brain”–are not the only two alternatives for someone wiht that issue to deal with.

 

[Rau]

Many people have to accept medical.conditions that at present are untreatable, wholly or partially, or else where the only options are unethical.

Honestly, I don’t have an adequate basis to take a position on the ethics of extreme cases. I’m not even sure if the Catholic Church has explicitly addressed the topic. But I do want to oppose the view that these horrendous surgeries are about persons pursuing flights of fancy, or purely self-indulgent in every case.

 

[Thorolfr]

Likewise, the two alternatives for those who have felt for an extended period of time that they don’t see the world as those of their sex typically do–namely, “you are weird, don’t be like that” and “well, maybe that’s because you have the wrong body for your brain”–are not the only two alternatives for someone wiht that issue to deal with.

If they don’t have the wrong body for their brain, then maybe they have the wrong brain for their body. And if someone’s whole brain isn’t wrong, part of it is probably wrong. Maybe they could have brain surgery someday to fix it.

 

[PetraG]

If they don’t have the wrong body for their brain, then maybe they have the wrong brain for their body. And if someone’s whole brain isn’t wrong, part of it is probably wrong.

Having a brain and a body that are difficult to reconcile doesn’t make them wrong any more than having a child who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with you means you got the wrong child. Atypical and difficult and wrong are all three different things. It is really easy for someone who has a difficult time to think they are “wrong” in some way, but that isn’t necessarily so.

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

If they don’t have the wrong body for their brain, then maybe they have the wrong brain for their body. And if someone’s whole brain isn’t wrong, part of it is probably wrong.

Having a brain and a body that are difficult to reconcile doesn’t make them wrong any more than having a child who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with you means you got the wrong child. Atypical and difficult and wrong are all three different things. It is really easy for someone who has a difficult time to think they are “wrong” in some way, but that isn’t necessarily so.

If someone has schizophrenia, then there is definitely something “wrong” with their brain even though schizophrenia can give people an unusual perspective. I’ve seen art work by people with schizophrenia and it’s often kind of interesting if a little bizarre.

 

[HarryStotle]

Some psychologists used to think that children were a “blank slate” and could be shaped almost exclusively by their environment. …

In general, too, how we turn out involves a complex interaction between our genes and our environment. Our environment can switch some genes on that would otherwise have remained dormant. This explains why many mental conditions like ADHD or schizophrenia or OCD, etc. show a strong genetic component and people are more likely to have them if they have close family members who also have them. But having the genes does not insure that someone will end up having the disorder since those genes might not end up being switched on by their environment.

The bolded point above is probably accurate to some degree. The problem, however, is with the social justice advocates who are trying to undermine every stable institution in society and create some new ideologically undetermined and unproven new structure that may (and very likely will) end up creating only many more victims.

Breaking up the stability of traditional families with two (heterosexual) parents, undermining morality and replacing it with a loose relativism and destroying legitimate social service organizations based upon free association and carrying out targeted good works has left the current iteration of society hollow and missing any sense of abiding purpose. Add to that the supposedly inevitable demise of the planet (according to the climate change activists) and you have created a general malaise and hopelessness among many, especially the young (at least to the extent that they are exposed to the progressive narrative.

Making some huge deal out of sexual attraction and identity as if that is the principal determiner of what defines the individual as a human being is certain to only create more anxiety and confusion. And beginning to feed very young children with that same uncertainty and confusion will not work out well for them. Perhaps the social order orchestrated by those bent upon remaking society is the cause of much of what ails us.

Thirty or forty years from today when more and more people wake up from the deluded narrative they have been fed by the progressive social moulders and no longer agree to be taken in by it, perhaps we will all look back at this age, give our heads a shake and, hopefully, count our blessings that the delusion was not taken as seriously as it might have been. We can hope.

 

[LilyM]

LilyM:

Many people have to accept medical.conditions that at present are untreatable, wholly or partially, or else where the only options are unethical.

Honestly, I don’t have an adequate basis to take a position on the ethics of extreme cases. I’m not even sure if the Catholic Church has explicitly addressed the topic. But I do want to oppose the view that these horrendous surgeries are about persons pursuing flights of fancy, or purely self-indulgent in every case.

I was thoughtless in some of my comments, and for that I unreservedly apologise. No, I believe the feelings of.most if not all trans persons are very genuine and their suffering is very real.

The Catholic Church does say, among other things, that one cannot pursue intrinsically immoral means even to good temporal ends. And that in other cases where the means are not intrinsically immoral, one still ought to weigh the spiritual as.well as material pros and cons.

And to go back to my example, inflicting a permanent injury and lifelong disability on an innocent child to achieve a definite but limited extension of the (in any case limited) lifespan of an adult is something that I think few people would endorse as morally or ethically OK.

 

[Thorolfr]

Making some huge deal out of sexual attraction and identity as if that is the principal determiner of what defines the individual as a human being is certain to only create more anxiety and confusion.

Most gay men don’t think that their sexual orientation is the principle determiner of what defines them as a human being. It’s only one of many things that defines them depending on the circumstances. Sometimes gay men do need to identify themselves by their sexuality, otherwise how would they ever be able to find other gay men for friendship, romance, etc. in a world where most men are straight? And for a lot of gay men who are from isolated, small towns, coming together with other gay men for something like a parade provides an important sense of belonging. In other settings, most gay men probably don’t explicitly bring up their sexual orientation. If it comes up at all, it’s probably something like, " I’d like to introduce you to my partner, John."

 

[Rau]

The Catholic Church does say, among other things, that one cannot pursue intrinsically immoral means even to good temporal ends. And that in other cases where the means are not intrinsically immoral, one still ought to weigh the spiritual as.well as material pros and cons.

I understand the general theological principles for determining the morality of human acts. At first blush, the surgeries discussed here are certainly questionable. But as we have seen in times passed with things such as transplants (from the living) and amputations etc it was not always instantly clear what the correct moral analysis should be. The principal of Totality was recognized as applicable in some of those cases, though there are opposing views on its applicability to the treatment of gender dysphoria, and whether it can be applied only to secondary sexual characteristics or also to primary.

For a discussion of these issues, see:
https://www.chausa.org/publications...hing-on-the-human-person-and-gender-dysphoria

I believe there is no Catholic teaching very specific to the matters we’ve been discussing. The Church has addressed the presence of a gender ideology emerging that is harmful to society and in particular to children, and I think that is probably right.

 

[Rau]

Sometimes gay men do need to identify themselves by their sexuality, otherwise how would they ever be able to find other gay men for friendship, romance, etc. in a world where most men are straight?

This ‘need’ of course is predicated on a decision/willingness to embrace same sex sexual relationships. It is not strictly a ‘need’ in the sense of food, shelter, and human relationships.

 

[Thorolfr]

Thorolfr:

Sometimes gay men do need to identify themselves by their sexuality, otherwise how would they ever be able to find other gay men for friendship, romance, etc. in a world where most men are straight?

This ‘need’ of course is predicated on a decision/willingness to embrace same sex sexual relationships. It is not strictly a ‘need’ in the sense of food, shelter, and human relationships.

Except for my partner of more than twenty years, most of my relationships with other gay men are for friendship and don’t involve any sex. And most of what we humans do is not as basic as a “need” for food and shelter. If someone says, “I need to go to the shoe store so that I can buy a new pair of shoes,” they’re not talking, of course, of a “need” of the kind that you’ve mentioned since new shoes are probably not of vital importance for their survival. What they really mean is that the shoes they have are getting a little bit worn out, and they’d like to get a new pair. And I’m pretty sure that using the word “need” in those kinds of situations is fairly common.

 

[Rau]

And I’m pretty sure that using the word “need” in those kinds of situations is fairly common.

Sure. But my point stands. There is no need (in the sense you use the word) to share one’s sexual inclinations with other men other than given a preparedness to give expression to them.