OK, but we also don’t say, “you know, you’re just made that way, you’re going to abuse alcohol, and that’s the way you were made” and everyone just accomdates the addiction. We don’t say, “you’re feeling that your life is hopeless and worthless is right, here, let’s help you end it all.” We don’t say “switch your noodle, that is crazy talk” but we don’t take their feelings at face value and call that treatment, either.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.
Contextually it could be that she is talking about God creating someone the “wrong gender” argument which is used by some transgender people.You only perceive it that way because you perceive LGBTQ people as having something wrong with themselves.
There may be groups who run that argument. But often, I see references to “confused people” and “kids abused by parents” to argue that cases of gender dysphoria are just that rather than acknowledging that some individuals do face truly difficult circumstances (as you say, “made different”) and which cannot be attributed simply to some life events.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.
The gender dysphoria sufferer does not deny what is bodily manifest. He suffers because it does not accord with his own mental picture of self. It seems medical science has identified no means to repair the mental picture.A denial of reality. We are who we are, not who we think we are.
There is actually dispute over whether “delusion” is the appropriate characterization. Some experts propose that the brain has not formed to match the individual’s sex and this is the cause of the dysphoria. Who knows! The “transitioning” measures are a way to ease the dissonance. The surgery options strike me as horrendous and I can only conclude the suffering must be severe to drive some to pursue such measures.The dispute is over whether or not it’s actually helping these people to indulge their delusion.
Absolutely. I don’t just mean in the same way that depression (or heart failure or lung cancer) can occur without environmental stressors bringing it on, which people do not appreciate sometimes. I mean that it may be that there are a good number of people who self-identify with the opposite sex for reasons that are innate rather than environmental, or more innate than environmental.There may be groups who run that argument. But often, I see references to “confused people” and “kids abused by parents” to argue that cases of gender dysphoria are just that rather than acknowledging that some individuals do face truly difficult circumstances (as you say, “made different”) and which cannot be attributed simply to some life events.
And what determines the reality of who we are, what is bodily manifest or the mental picture a person has of themself?The gender dysphoria sufferer does not deny what is bodily manifest. He suffers because it does not accord with his own mental picture of self
The expression “who we are” is not useful and perhaps not even meaningful. The problem, and the treatments pursued, are not philosophical, but pragmatic.And what determines the reality of who we are, what is bodily manifest or the mental picture a person has of themself?
We do not choose our identity, we are who we are whether we like it or not. I’d quite like to be taller and have a full head of hair, but I’m short and bald and no amount of ‘self-identification’ will change that.You simplified a process of self identity to a glance in a mirror.
I know people who never get headaches who also claim that people who have headaches are lying.There are lots of things I don’t really understand because I’ve never experienced them.
Used to be that depressed people were told to snap out of it.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.
Of course we should not just tell someone who is deeply disturbed and has difficulty accepting who he is to just snap out of it, but nor should we tell the person that what he is experiencing is OK and that he really is who he imagines himself to be.Maybe people who think they are of a different gender than the one they’re born with may have a brain/hormonal difference? We do not fully understand how hormones play a part in a developing brain.
We just cannot tell them to snap out of it.