The Spiritual And Social Fate of the Regretful Transsexual

[Insomniac]

So, this might be a peculiar question, but it just occurred to me today, so I figured that I’d ask it.

What happens to a post-operative transsexual who later comes to regret the decision, both socially and religiously? By that point, they have so utterly altered their body that to return to their original form would be most difficult, if not impossible. As physical appearance is a huge part of the way we are treated in society, I suppose that would be an issue. And this would spill over into that person’s reintegration into more orthodox Catholic life. It’s a very complicated issue (to me at least), and I don’t know if I explained it well.

Still, your thoughts?

 

[jacie]

Actually, they can and do reverse the surgery, sometimes more than once. And going off the hormones will result in a fairly close return to former appearance, sans breasts or male genitalia. Any idea if there are any transexual converts around? Would be interesting to hear from them.

 

[Annn]

Actually, they can and do reverse the surgery, sometimes more than once. .

What is “the” surgery you are referring to, and how can it be reversed? Thank you.

 

[Dale_M]

Actually, they can and do reverse the surgery, sometimes more than once.

My understanding is that the Female to Male genital surgery produces only a poor approximation of a penis, with erections possible only with implants. So I am not sure that “reversible” is quite right. But I am willing to learn more about these surgeries, if you would tell us.

As for the OP’s question about spiritual fate of regretful transsexuals, I don’t see why the Catholic Church would treat them as any different than any other repentant person.

 

[jacie]

I am no expert, and I have no idea of any particular surgeons, but I know I have read occasionally in the paper of cases where transsexuals have changed their mind and reversed the procedure. I’m sure any such reversals could not be completely restorative and must leave one somewhat disfigured.

That said, I would hope we welcome anyone into the church who is a sincere seeker of truth, no matter any such disfigurement. But like I said before, I would imagine noone else would know just looking at their face. But you’re right, it must affect the way you think and feel about yourself. The inner conflicts that drove them to the surgery to begin with still need to be resolved. Not an easy road, I imagine.

 

[aussie_jaz]

a true transsex person would not return to their birth sex.the ‘transsexuals’ that are being discussed here are nothing more than a type of transvestite (or other transgender) who have taken their fetish way too far.
i would love to know how one could think such a surgery could possibly result in anywhere near what the genitalia looked like before.if one was to see how the surgery (male to female, atleast)is performed one would see how amusing that thought is.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I am no expert, and I have no idea of any particular surgeons, but I know I have read occasionally in the paper of cases where transsexuals have changed their mind and reversed the procedure. I’m sure any such reversals could not be completely restorative and must leave one somewhat disfigured.

That said, I would hope we welcome anyone into the church who is a sincere seeker of truth, no matter any such disfigurement. But like I said before, I would imagine noone else would know just looking at their face. But you’re right, it must affect the way you think and feel about yourself. The inner conflicts that drove them to the surgery to begin with still need to be resolved. Not an easy road, I imagine.

Definitely not an expert either! However, I did write on CAF about a retold experience on a TV talk show which aired many years ago. I guess you could call this person a recovered transsexual, who did indeed get the restorative surgery, but that was not the big story. The big story (as she told it) was her descent into alternative lifestyles which brought her only deeper and deeper unhappiness, and further and further escape from her true self, until she couldn’t take it any longer, and begged God in her lowest moment to return her to sexual sanity and wholeness. When on the show she still had enormous regret for what she considered a series of disordered decisions and a substitution of sex for God, and sexuality alone for full identity. She was so raw from the experience that her appearance was very moving: she was conscious of the overpowering mercy of God and clearly that was uppermost in her whole being.

On a personal basis, I have nothing but compassion for anyone who “feels trapped” (usually the way they describe the experience) in an “opposite” body. I met a schoolteacher recently who is a known transsexual at one of our local junior highs. (Outward appearance of a female; shockingly low voice when she speaks; then I learned from other professionals that she is indeed a transsexual.) I felt no judgment of her. Yet on a broader-based societal perspective, I agree with the woman on the talk show who criticized the dominance of sex and sexuality and everything related, as utterly disordered and not leading to happiness. (Occasionally the teacher I just mentioned seems fine and happy, but most of the time I’ve seen her, she comes across as very unhappy.) Yet I have no doubt that God’s mercy shines equally on both transsexuals I mentioned. It’s just that perhaps one of them is now happier than the other, having placed God first, sexuality second.

 

[Methodi]

Definitely not an expert either! However, I did write on CAF about a retold experience on a TV talk show which aired many years ago. I guess you could call this person a recovered transsexual, who did indeed get the restorative surgery, but that was not the big story. The big story (as she told it) was her descent into alternative lifestyles which brought her only deeper and deeper unhappiness, and further and further escape from her true self, until she couldn’t take it any longer, and begged God in her lowest moment to return her to sexual sanity and wholeness. When on the show she still had enormous regret for what she considered a series of disordered decisions and a substitution of sex for God, and sexuality alone for full identity. She was so raw from the experience that her appearance was very moving: she was conscious of the overpowering mercy of God and clearly that was uppermost in her whole being.

On a personal basis, I have nothing but compassion for anyone who “feels trapped” (usually the way they describe the experience) in an “opposite” body. I met a schoolteacher recently who is a known transsexual at one of our local junior highs. (Outward appearance of a female; shockingly low voice when she speaks; then I learned from other professionals that she is indeed a transsexual.) I felt no judgment of her. Yet on a broader-based societal perspective, I agree with the woman on the talk show who criticized the dominance of sex and sexuality and everything related, as utterly disordered and not leading to happiness. (Occasionally the teacher I just mentioned seems fine and happy, but most of the time I’ve seen her, she comes across as very unhappy.) Yet I have no doubt that God’s mercy shines equally on both transsexuals I mentioned. It’s just that perhaps one of them is now happier than the other, having placed God first, sexuality second.

We all have different crosses to bear & most of them aren`t pretty

 

[jacie]

Amen. You have to look out across our world today and feel such sadness that our “true” happiness seems so identified with sex and sexuality. I wonder how much of this goes on in third world countries where people are fighting for the basics of living. Do they have time to even think about their “sexuality”? Is this mostly a product of our western affluence where we do too much belly-button gazing? You see it in our celebrity culture, where they have to push the bar farther and farther to find their thrills.

 

[Dale_M]

Amen. You have to look out across our world today and feel such sadness that our “true” happiness seems so identified with sex and sexuality…

I don’t mean to pick on you, because I know you are echoing other sentiments, but I don’t think transsexualism has much to do with sex or sexuality. It has to do with gender and gender expression. Many transsexuals, so I have heard, have rather low libidos. Sex may ultimately enter into one’s life, but it isn’t the motivating factor.

 

[Elizabeth502]

I don’t mean to pick on you, because I know you are echoing other sentiments, but I don’t think transsexualism has much to do with sex or sexuality. It has to do with gender and gender expression. Many transsexuals, so I have heard, have rather low libidos. Sex may ultimately enter into one’s life, but it isn’t the motivating factor.

Fair enough, Dale. However (I said this on another thread; I’m sorry I forget which one, but I believe my sentiments were echoed by some), gender identity and gender expression has gone way over the top in our culture – also disproportionally to its importance in the full identity of the individual.

Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seems that in my youth – and certainly in my parents’ generation – one laughed at oneself more with regard to this. Girls just dealt with feeling like a tomboy, preferring to hang out more with guys, ‘identifying’ more with guys (if they did), choosing rough-and-tumble sports over traditionally feminine activities. And those who did, were people I admired, as having strength and individualism to be themselves. I didn’t think of them as trying to be who they were not. And in turn, they laughed about their situation. Such people didn’t feel that they had to do something physical about that. I also felt that it was good role-modeling, though I wasn’t thinking of that more sophisticated phrase consciously. I sensed that it was healthy that there are a variety of styles of being female or feminine. And I think such women can and have made excellent role models for their children of both genders, when they have become mothers.

P.S. I know you weren’t addressing me, but someone else. But I just wanted to respond anyway.

 

[aspawloski4th]

Fair enough, Dale. However (I said this on another thread; I’m sorry I forget which one, but I believe my sentiments were echoed by some), gender identity and gender expression has gone way over the top in our culture – also disproportionally to its importance in the full identity of the individual.

Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seems that in my youth – and certainly in my parents’ generation – one laughed at oneself more with regard to this. Girls just dealt with feeling like a tomboy, preferring to hang out more with guys, ‘identifying’ more with guys (if they did), choosing rough-and-tumble sports over traditionally feminine activities. And those who did, were people I admired, as having strength and individualism to be themselves. I didn’t think of them as trying to be who they were not. And in turn, they laughed about their situation. Such people didn’t feel that they had to do something physical about that. I also felt that it was good role-modeling, though I wasn’t thinking of that more sophisticated phrase consciously. I sensed that it was healthy that there are a variety of styles of being female or feminine. And I think such women can and have made excellent role models for their children of both genders, when they have become mothers.

P.S. I know you weren’t addressing me, but someone else. But I just wanted to respond anyway.

In my case Thats all surface symptoms of something deeper and many a time byond words in the case of my transsexuality. I’m not transsexual because I’m feminin , I’m femine because Im transsexual.

 

[Elizabeth502]

In my case Thats all surface symptoms of something deeper and many a time byond words in the case of my transsexuality. I’m not transsexual because I’m feminin , I’m femine because Im transsexual.

How can you judge that my examples were “surface symptoms?” Even I don’t know that, and I knew these people, whereas you did not. For all I know, their internal conflicts ran deep. Maybe they just didn’t feel that the entire centerpiece of their lives should be to change what they were born with – but rather to identify in other ways without an operation.

Lots of people passionately identify with a role (such as parenthood, marriage, a particular career) that they have been frustrated in attaining or deprived of due to physical reasons. (Such as not having long enough legs to be a professional dancer.) What should they do: grow artificially long limbs in order to satisfy their identity crisis?

It’s not that I feel unsympathetic to all varieties of disappointments in life. I just don’t think that gender identity is necessarily of significantly greater importance to one’s happiness than all other components of identity.

Let me give you example, because I don’t think the passion to have a particular career can be exaggerated. For many people, living out a certain occupation (or role) is central to their identity and their very soul. For a brief period, early in my teaching career, I couldn’t find a teaching job, and in more than one state. This precipitated a huge emotional and identity crisis for me. I felt as if I could not go on. I contemplated suicide. I knew I was born to teach; the idea of it, the feeling about it, was central to my identity. After 2 years, I came to terms with the suffering. I temporarily switched careers. Later I was fortunate enough to come back to it, and even later, to build on that and I now have a richly variegated educational career which consists of multiple roles which fulfill me (beyond teaching). But I consider this eventual result a gift. I was prepared to change careers permanently if need be rather than try to escape the suffering that would purify me and prepare me better for that career.

I’m not judging you for being a transsexual. I’m saying that your identity as a child of God is infinitely more central to your identity than your gender or gender change.

I do not believe that no one is pre-modern times had internal conflicts with their gender identities. But apparently, lacking surgical options, they dealt with it somehow and possibly managed to come to terms some of those agonies.

 

[aspawloski4th]

I do not believe that no one is pre-modern times had internal conflicts with their gender identities. But apparently, lacking surgical options, they dealt with it somehow and possibly managed to come to terms some of those agonies.

With anything psychological or medical relatd I don’t look to the past to see how people coped with it. Quite frankly if it werent for modern medicine I might not be here. Iv’e had 34 kidneystones in my life, 33 were passed one had to be removed through an operation. That stone could of very well caused renal failure because of it’s size. Yes the stones are now under control. I hear no one saying cope with it, the people of the past did. Whe I was starting school way way back in the 70s I was incapable of functioning in a reguler ed setting because of emotional, attention and learning disabilities, the way wiith coping with those kids was locking them up even in the not to distant past. With gender issues some suddenly want to look to the past on how to deal with that suddenly. If I was born in the 1800’s I’d been locked up then dead at 30. While I do learn from the past because I’m a student of history. I don’t want to go back to it. Going back to the music of the 70’s might be fine though.

 

[Elizabeth502]

With anything psychological or medical relatd I don’t look to the past to see how people coped with it. Quite frankly if it werent for modern medicine I might not be here. Iv’e had 34 kidneystones in my life, 33 were passed one had to be removed through an operation. That stone could of very well caused renal failure because of it’s size. Yes the stones are now under control. I hear no one saying cope with it, the people of the past did. Whe I was starting school way way back in the 70s I was incapable of functioning in a reguler ed setting because of emotional, attention and learning disabilities, the way wiith coping with those kids was locking them up even in the not to distant past. With gender issues some suddenly want to look to the past on how to deal with that suddenly. If I was born in the 1800’s I’d been locked up then dead at 30. While I do learn from the past because I’m a student of history. I don’t want to go back to it. Going back to the music of the 70’s might be fine though.

We were discussing identity, and perceptions of identity, especially gender identity, and whether or not it is advisable (and moral) to go to extreme measures to medically alter external manifestations of apparent gender. Not discussing whether medical advances for actual illnesses and conditions should not have been treated or whether they were treatable. Identity enters an entirely different realm.

Neither your identity nor the gender aspects of that identity are “illnesses” or “disabilities,” unless you choose to view them that way. They are gifts from God. However, i.m.o., obviously not shared by you, our attempts to disown our gender of birth – via medical manipulation or worse, via suicide – indicates a spiritual and/or psychological illness. Again, I am not denying suffering and even agony over essential & core disappointments in life. But just because we have the capability of medical alteration for many “less desirable” or simply “not chosen” personal conditions, does not necessarily give us moral permission to exploit those options. And often those extreme measures do not after all result in that peace and happiness and sense of wholeness which the subject of those measures seeks and assume will result. (That was my point about the earlier story of the guest on the TV talk show, who ultimately had an epiphany that our identity rests in God, and God alone, who is the ultimate source of happiness and wholeness & personal affirmation.)

 

[Dale_M]

Hi Elizabeth! Thank you for your thoughtful and thought-provoking comments.

…gender identity and gender expression has gone way over the top in our culture – also disproportionally to its importance in the full identity of the individual.

Maybe I’m just imagining it, but it seems that in my youth – and certainly in my parents’ generation – one laughed at oneself more with regard to this. Girls just dealt with feeling like a tomboy, preferring to hang out more with guys, ‘identifying’ more with guys (if they did), choosing rough-and-tumble sports over traditionally feminine activities. And those who did, were people I admired, as having strength and individualism to be themselves.

Hm. I don’t think the experience of boys who were considered feminine was nearly so positive. And even tomboys were expected to “grow out of it” or they would be whispered to be lesbian. Today, our culture is much more accepting of diversity in gender expression than it was in the past, and I think this is good thing.

I didn’t think of them as trying to be who they were not. And in turn, they laughed about their situation. Such people didn’t feel that they had to do something physical about that.

We both agree on this. Just feeling feminine or masculine, or preferring behavior and objects which are stereotypically associated with the opposite sex is not enough. I think the changes in our culture which weakened gender stereotypes have been a good thing. I would add that no one should change their sex unless they absolutely have to. Changing one’s sex is a difficult, painful and costly process - not only in terms of money, but also in relationships and social roles. Its not a small thing.

But I believe that there are small numbers of persons who seriously can’t function in a healthy, productive way short of changing their sex. For them, the medical advances of the past 80 years have brought a liberation from suicide or a life of alcoholism/drug addiction.

I sensed that it was healthy that there are a variety of styles of being female or feminine. And I think such women can and have made excellent role models for their children of both genders, when they have become mothers.

I absolutely agree with you on this.

P.S. I know you weren’t addressing me, but someone else. But I just wanted to respond anyway.

Hey, we’re all friends here. Everyone can join in the conversation whenever they want.

 

[Elizabeth502]

But I believe that there are small numbers of persons who seriously can’t function in a healthy, productive way short of changing their sex. For them, the medical advances of the past 80 years have brought a liberation from suicide or a life of alcoholism/drug addiction.

Perhaps. But I still maintain that such small numbers do not warrant the amount of attention paid to this problem over the last 10-20 years.

And I continue to maintain that the focus should be away from The Self as the be-all and end-all of life’s journey. From a Christian perspective, the journey of life is to die to the idolatry and extreme focus on self, while at the same time to “love” oneself in the way Jesus affirmed. (To accept oneself fully, to nurture, care for one’s physical and psychological needs.) I categorize the public’s fascination with gender issues and gender identity as “an extreme focus on The Self.” This is an era with an inordinate preoccupation on The Individual, so much so that the individual begins to lose his or her sense of community and continuity, and thus existential meaning. We are meaningful partly in relation to how we relate to others, and vice-versa, including people very different from ourselves, including people without gender angst.

I agree with another poster (I think on this thread) who speculated that this is a First World “problem” because we have the luxury for that. Are you preoccupied with your gender identity when you’re desperate for where the next meal is coming from? How many people in Sri Lanka seriously consider suicide over the singular issue of gender identity?

Dale, I don’t know if those frustrated, would-be transsexual of earlier eras committed suicide because of feeling trapped or because of not being accepted by society. (Big difference.) How about education and tolerance instead of surgery?

And I still ask the question from the perspective of Christian philosophy: Is it redemptive to go to extreme lengths to reverse every suffering, including any suffering we are born with and find difficult, distasteful, even agonizing?

And what’s worse? To be born “in the wrong body”? Or to be born, or become, a quadriplegic? Or someone with ALS? Or someone genetically bound to develop Huntington’s disease? At the moment, all those conditions are irreversible medically. Maybe I’m a cold person, but to my mind, those conditions are far more tragic – assuming the would-be transsexual is otherwise physically healthy.

 

[aspawloski4th]

And what’s worse? To be born “in the wrong body”? Or to be born, or become, a quadriplegic? Or someone with ALS? Or someone genetically bound to develop Huntington’s disease? At the moment, all those conditions are irreversible medically. Maybe I’m a cold person, but to my mind, those conditions are far more tragic – assuming the would-be transsexual is otherwise physically healthy.

Ok Ill put it this way. I think I have mentioned in ths thread. I know I havementioned in other threads here that I have passed multiple kidneystones and been operated on to remove one. That pain of all those stones is a grain of sand on a sea shore compared to the interal pain of being physicsally a male. If a sex change operation ment a guarenteed million kidneystones, I’d still do it without the slightest hesitation.

 

[Elizabeth502]

That pain of all those stones is a grain of sand on a sea shore compared to the interal pain of being physicsally a male.

And Jesus didn’t have enormous, overwhelming, cosmic internal pain? And you don’t think there may be other individuals on the planet whose pain is as or even more severe than yours, but who are managing to deal with it? And, possibly, if they are Christian, do what we use to call “offer it up”? Maybe there are people being tortured right now, wrongfully imprisoned (gender mis-identity is sometimes referred to as a kind of imprisonment), etc.? What about all those people in Australia who just lost absolutely everything in the fires – all they hold dear, all their memories? Some of those people are in a state of despair and will never fully recover, and certainly cannot reverse the effects of their circumstances, even if they can find new circumstances.

So what do we do when we can’t change our circumstances – even when the pain is as or more excruciating than what you endured? Do we not find a way to transform those sufferings constructively?

What you are describing is a kind of mental pain or even mental torture. But thousands of other people on planet Earth, through the centuries, have experienced excruciating mental pain – some because of mental illness, some because of unjust or unfortunate circumstances. Unless you can prove that gender mis-identity is so unique in difficulty and agony as to warrant exceptional measures (vs. degrees of suffering for those other situations), it’s difficult for me to view this as a suffering beyond all sufferings.

Again, I apologize if I come off as cold.

Last night, in one of many of his repeat lectures, Fr. John Corapi was discussing how privileged we Christians should feel to share in the redemptive suffering of Christ. He wasn’t lecturing from a theoretical model (theology), but rather from the experience of a couple of people he had known, whom he had watched in the last (visionary) stages of their lives – people who had previewed the “joy” (in their words) of being united with Christ in his suffering.

We always want some other cross than the one we’re being given. Especially in this modern society, which values the Pursuit of (perceived) Happiness at all costs.

 

[Dale_M]

And I continue to maintain that the focus should be away from The Self as the be-all and end-all of life’s journey. From a Christian perspective, the journey of life is to die to the idolatry and extreme focus on self, while at the same time to “love” oneself in the way Jesus affirmed. (To accept oneself fully, to nurture, care for one’s physical and psychological needs.)

I agree with you. But isn’t changing one’s sex, when there is no other way to cope, when a person is at road’s end, taking care of one’s psychological needs?

I categorize the public’s fascination with gender issues and gender identity as “an extreme focus on The Self.”

Hm. I agree that the public’s fascination with this topic is out of line. But I am not sure I would categorize it as an extreme focus on self. Rather, it is voyeurism. At its worst, day time talk shows spring to mind, its little more than the freak shows of old.

This is an era with an inordinate preoccupation on The Individual, so much so that the individual begins to lose his or her sense of community and continuity, and thus existential meaning. We are meaningful partly in relation to how we relate to others, and vice-versa, including people very different from ourselves, including people without gender angst.

Yep. The age of mobility has contributed to this loss of community. The internet has helped to some extent, but online communities (such as this one) don’t replace face to face interaction (which I think all humans need).

I agree with another poster (I think on this thread) who speculated that this is a First World “problem” because we have the luxury for that. Are you preoccupied with your gender identity when you’re desperate for where the next meal is coming from? How many people in Sri Lanka seriously consider suicide over the singular issue of gender identity?

Its a question I can’t fully answer. I think it is reasonable that starvation would tend to cancel out other concerns. On the other hand, India (which is only 30 miles from Sri Lanka) has a long history of boys removing their genitalia and living as girls/woman. But such persons are viewed with suspicion and something less than full acceptance if not disdain. In modern day Latin America, transsexualism is often subsumed into the homosexual community which has been more tolerant of diversity in gender expression. But such persons are looked down upon in the land of machismo. I think non-First World people do take actions to deal with transsexualism and are they are willing to endure sacrifice.

Dale, I don’t know if those frustrated, would-be transsexual of earlier eras committed suicide because of feeling trapped or because of not being accepted by society. (Big difference.) How about education and tolerance instead of surgery?

Catherine, we don’t know because its never been tested. Even with all of our cultural advances of the past 50 years, we are a long ways from full tolerance of peoples who are different. I’m not even sure that it is possible to reach such a level of social tolerance - it’s never been done

And I still ask the question from the perspective of Christian philosophy: Is it redemptive to go to extreme lengths to reverse every suffering, including any suffering we are born with and find difficult, distasteful, even agonizing?

But surely you don’t mean to suggest that a person should endure pain, for pain’s sake? That a person with a toothache shouldn’t get treatment, or if s/he does go to the dentist that s/he should refuse any pain relief? Just because a person is transsexual doesn’t mean they don’t have other crosses which they are bearing. Treating the worst of the pains doesn’t remove all of the others.

And what’s worse? To be born “in the wrong body”? Or to be born, or become, a quadriplegic? Or someone with ALS? Or someone genetically bound to develop Huntington’s disease? At the moment, all those conditions are irreversible medically. Maybe I’m a cold person, but to my mind, those conditions are far more tragic – assuming the would-be transsexual is otherwise physically healthy.

Indeed, those are terrible conditions. But do you really think that the persons afflicted would (or should) refuse treatment if they could be cured?