The Reality of Sex and the Lie of “Gender Self-Identity”

[JimG]

The Reality of Sex and the Lie of “Gender Self-Identity” – Catholic World Report

“In the future—hopefully not the too-distant future—people are going to look back at this transgender moment in the same way they look back at the lobotomy moment. They’re going be amazed, and maybe a little embarrassed for humanity’s sake.”
"

 

[PaulinVA]

I am conflicted about the whole issue. I think Amy describes it well.

I’ve never gotten “gender identity”. It had to be invented to explain transgender people, but I don’t really buy it. But at the same time time, I know that LGBTQ people just want to love and be loved, which i think is something God put into us.

 

[Thorolfr]

I am conflicted about the whole issue. I think Amy describes it well.

I’ve never gotten “gender identity”. It had to be invented to explain transgender people, but I don’t really buy it. But at the same time time, I know that LGBTQ people just want to love and be loved, which i think is something God put into us.

There are lots of things I don’t really understand because I’ve never experienced them. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist for other people. Fo me, my biological sex is male and is in alignment with a male and masculine gender identity. So, I don’t know what it’s like to be biologically male but identify as or feel feminine in some way on the inside.

I’ve also never experienced chronic and debilitating depression, but I know people who suffer from it so much that they’ve considered suicide at times in their life. I don’t understand that kind of depression. People with serious depression often get asked by people who don’t suffer from depression about what’s making them feel depressed. But one friend of mine told me that he hates that question because there’s no specific external thing that’s making him depressed. It’s probably some malfunction in his brain that’s causing the depression.

 

[goout]

PaulinVA:

I am conflicted about the whole issue. I think Amy describes it well.

I’ve never gotten “gender identity”. It had to be invented to explain transgender people, but I don’t really buy it. But at the same time time, I know that LGBTQ people just want to love and be loved, which i think is something God put into us.

There are lots of things I don’t really understand because I’ve never experienced them. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist for other people. Fo me, my biological sex is male and is in alignment with a male and masculine gender identity. So, I don’t know what it’s like to be biologically male but identify as or feel feminine in some way on the inside.

I’ve also never experienced chronic and debilitating depression, but I know people who suffer from it so much that they’ve considered suicide at times in their life. I don’t understand that kind of depression. People with serious depression often get asked by people who don’t suffer from depression about what’s making them feel depressed. But one friend of mine told me that he hates that question because there’s no specific external thing that’s making him depressed. It’s probably some malfunction in his brain that’s causing the depression.

Yes but you have to be able to make distinctions about an essential human trait like sexual differentiation.
Depression may have physical causes. That’s fine. Recognizing that physical cause does not deny human nature.

Human beings, as we come to be and exist, are essentially differentiated sexually. Without that differentiation there is no human being.
That is a different thing than race, or other physical trait that is non-essential or non-determinative, for human existence.

 

[PetraG]

There are lots of things I don’t really understand because I’ve never experienced them. That doesn’t mean that they don’t exist for other people. Fo me, my biological sex is male and is in alignment with a male and masculine gender identity. So, I don’t know what it’s like to be biologically male but identify as or feel feminine in some way on the inside.

I’ve also never experienced chronic and debilitating depression, but I know people who suffer from it so much that they’ve considered suicide at times in their life. I don’t understand that kind of depression. People with serious depression often get asked by people who don’t suffer from depression about what’s making them feel depressed. But one friend of mine told me that he hates that question because there’s no specific external thing that’s making him depressed. It’s probably some malfunction in his brain that’s causing the depression.

This is all true, but it doesn’t mean that everything we think about ourselves when we are depressed is the truth. We are the experts about how we feel, but we’re not the experts on how and what we are. We can have self-concepts that are objectively biased; for instance, when we are depressed, our self concept can be objectively more pessimistic and negative than we could support with any objective metric. That doesn’t mean our feelings aren’t real! It also does not mean that our feelings about ourselves are correct. No, they can be, objectively speaking, totally off base.

The red flag I see about gender identity is that there isn’t any other thing about ourselves in which we are not only the expert about how we feel about it but also the expert on the objective facts about ourselves. No, the truth is that we are often pretty bad at judging and accepting the latter. It can be extremely difficult to cope with, but that doesn’t mean that the answer to the difficulty is to require the world to overlook the objective measurable things about us and act as if those are all irrelevant. I don’t have any trouble with people saying, “OK, I’m a woman but I don’t like pink” or “I’m a guy but I don’t like the same things other men like.” That is not what I mean. I could say I don’t self-identify with a high or a low BMI, and it doesn’t mean that doesn’t describe me accurately.

I have no idea why sex ought to be singled out as the one area is the exception to the obvious truth that self-assessment is NOT the whole truth about a person. No, self-assessment is part of the truth, but physical facts are part of it, too. Reconciling your feelings with the physical realities about yourself can be very difficulty, but the difficulty of achieving that reconcilation doesn’t make the physical facts irrelevant.

 

[goout]

Here’s the slippery slope that gender identity will lead down:
If you are willing to deny one essential human characteristic, you can expect that other traits, even less essential ones, will be denied as well.
Denying human nature dehumanizes us, by definition. And that is not a good thing.

Fro example:
We feed the hungry because human beings need food and have stomachs that need to be filled. That’s essential to human flourishing. Anybody should be able to observe this, but if you relativize human nature this can be denied or obscured.
You can apply this to almost any human characteristic. You can also deny that Jews or black people are human beings.

Dehumanization is bad news.

 

[Rau]

Yes but you have to be able to make distinctions about an essential human trait like sexual differentiation.
Depression may have physical causes. That’s fine. Recognizing that physical cause does not deny human nature.

I don’t understand this…what does the first sentence mean? How do explain gender dysphoria? Do you entirely reject the idea that it is real and has a real cause?

 

[Rau]

I have no idea why sex ought to be singled out as the one area is the exception to the obvious truth that self-assessment is NOT the whole truth about a person. No, self-assessment is part of the truth, but physical facts are part of it, too. Reconciling your feelings with the physical realities about yourself can be very difficulty, but the difficulty of achieving that reconcilation doesn’t make the physical facts irrelevant.

I agree. For those suffering from a severe gender dysphoria, the physical realities (of their body) are not irrelevant, but their experience is that their distress is eased by suppressing them.

 

[Mary888]

I think that because discerning Christians do not see how serious an offense and public sin the whole LGBTQ thing is, the whole insanity will last till the end of time (not so far imho).
LGBTQ etc is founded on the grounds that God makes mistakes - like their claim is based on “He gives false laws”, " He puts souls in the wrong bodies". This is highly blasphemous. The demon of lust (won’t say His name) is having a blast for decades and lately He must be having a blast for Christians (like fr. James Martin, may God forgive him) to promote these things.
I foresee God will let us experience all the diseases and punishments resulted from our INDIFFERENCE to His rules or the spiritual needs of people deceived to believe they are LGBTQIAA. It is our fake sense of charity that will make all nonsense grow even wider until it hurts, burns and bites every single one of us on earth. Because we have to understand that these ways are not acceptable in His eyes. We chose not to accept it freely, as a rule, we will understand it full of fear in the face of the body evidence.

 

[Rau]

LGBTQ etc is founded on the grounds that God makes mistakes

No, I don’t think that is the claim. We don’t regard God having made a mistake if a child is born with serious medical affliction. Why would you assume that whatever is in us that determines our sexual orientation cannot be damaged during our formation?

 

[goout]

I accept that people have struggles with issues of sexual identification. The causes are uncertain.
That doesn’t change human nature. And there is an attempt to subject human nature using these unusual circumstances to dictate the norm.

 

[Rau]

And there is an attempt to subject human nature using these unusual circumstances to dictate the norm.

Can you elaborate and explain what you mean here?

 

[PaulinVA]

I think that because discerning Christians do not see how serious an offense and public sin the whole LGBTQ thing is, the whole insanity will last till the end of time (not so far imho).
LGBTQ etc is founded on the grounds that God makes mistakes - like their claim is based on “He gives false laws”, " He puts souls in the wrong bodies". This is highly blasphemous. The demon of lust (won’t say His name) is having a blast for decades and lately He must be having a blast for Christians (like fr. James Martin, may God forgive him) to promote these things.

My first son was born with a very severe birth defect and died when he was three.

The biology didn’t come together correctly. God created the biology, and lets it take its course. Sometimes everything doesn’t come together correctly to create a cis-gendered, beautiful/handsome human with above average intelligence and wit and charm.

Is that a mistake? No. It’s just the way it is. Maybe it’s the fall.

So, when someone is attracted to the same sex, or feels they are transgender, that is just everything not coming together correctly. Maybe because of the fall variation has been introduced. Maybe it’s Phthalates in the water. Maybe, maybe, Maybe.

So, as Christians, what do we do? Our LGBTQ brothers and sisters are just who they are. They just want to love and be loved, like all of us. We know what the Church says.

However, we don’t attack someone with depression and tell them that’s not the way God created them. We don’t tell the person with an addictive personality that God created them and therefore they don’t have a predisposition to addiction.

 

[JMMJ]

LGBTQ etc is founded on the grounds that God makes mistakes

i don’t think this is right. You only perceive it that way because you perceive LGBTQ people as having something wrong with themselves.

People like me don’t beleive there is anything wrong with LGBTQ people, so I see no mistake made by God. To the contrary, I see beauty in the difference and variance of the way He creates humans.

 

[goout]

Using the fact that some suffer from difficult and unusual circumstances to argue towards the denial of human nature.
Not sure how else to put it.

 

[Rau]

Using the fact that some suffer from difficult and unusual circumstances to argue towards the denial of human nature.
Not sure how else to put it.

You are a person of few words!
Do you mean that the broad claims of gender ideology / gender fluidity and all that - including that these variations are normal (as opposed to afflictions) - amount to a denial of human nature?

 

[Rau]

People like me don’t beleive there is anything wrong with LGBTQ people, so I see no mistake made by God. To the contrary, I see beauty in the difference and variance of the way He creates humans.

What characterizes “people like you”?

If a person finds themselves experiencing no sexual attraction to the opposite sex, but a sexual attraction to the same sex - with all the implications that entails Eg. No possibility, to marry, no possibility to parent children, attracted to something which is not morally good - would you not see that as an affliction?

 

[goout]

goout:

Using the fact that some suffer from difficult and unusual circumstances to argue towards the denial of human nature.
Not sure how else to put it.

You are a person of few words!
Do you mean that the broad claims of gender ideology / gender fluidity and all that - including that these variations are normal (as opposed to afflictions) - amount to a denial of human nature?

Human beings are sexually differentiated. If we were not sexually differentiated as male and female, we wouldn’t be having this discussion. I hope that is clear.

How does a movement get to the point where this is up for debate? It uses the struggle of people who are confused/made different/psychologically abused by parents…to make the case that the human nature we observe above is subject to personal considerations.
Personal considerations would be one person’s desires, individual struggles, psychological issues, whatever it might be.

 

[Brendan_64]

Do you mean that the broad claims of gender ideology / gender fluidity and all that - including that these variations are normal (as opposed to afflictions) - amount to a denial of human nature?

A denial of reality. We are who we are, not who we think we are.

 

[Zach]

Good point I’d like to give my opinion but every time I do on this subject I get flagged. I don’t feel like getting flagged or suspended so I’ll self censure