The Spiritual And Social Fate of the Regretful Transsexual

[Elizabeth502]

There is no conflict. Some people simply are unwilling to make the distinction between homosexuality and transsexualism. I think this is regrettable, but some people prefer a simplistic view of reality.

Now you are engaging in verbal engineering, invoking a stereotype about parents. Parents are not always involved in the lives of their children. Sorry, perhaps it should be that way, but it simply isn’t true. What matters is involvement in the lives of children, and I think it is possible for non-parents to do this.

Wow. And because some parents are not “always” involved, this in your mind authorizes non-parents to become parents. How perverted. You have not read the literature on imprinting of the parental relationship. It is vast. Not “just anyone” is equally influential in a child’s life, and the fact that you believe, and/or will rationalize that in order to fulfill your own agenda, shows to what lengths you will go to substitute radical self-assertion (a phrase Fr. Mark Mary used on EWTN this a.m., at Mass) for radical love of God’s natural order.

Elizabeth, what is amazing is your inability to remember what you write. I will quote you:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4803098&postcount=91

My quote about “impatient” involved impatience as to particular points on this particular thread, repeated without understanding by the other side. Not a failure to agree or failure to accept, but a refusal to argue from logical premises and from classic Christology. I never once said or implied that I was impatient with the topic or with discussion of it, merely impatient with obstinancy about some supposedly unique theology not shared by the Body of Christ, her church. If I were so impatient, I would be like the hit-and-run posters who drop-in, insult, and leave. Yet you never address these people. You prefer to misrepresent my statements and then insult me, based on misrepresentations.

 

[aspawloski4th]

Never said or implied any of this, but you have a chip on your shoulder. Never marginalized your suffering, in fact quite the opposite. Never said I was “in charge,” or anything close to that. I said, and I’ll say it again, that compared to the intolerant and hateful and uninformed and marginalizing comments made by many others on this and other threads, on this very issue, I have been a listener and a calm contributor, with way more openness and many commentators whose obvious prejudice and contempt has been ignored or tolerated.

I said specifically over and over that no one , including myself, including you (and any other actual or would-be transsexuals), are in a position to judge one person’s suffering relative to anyone else’s. The inability to have such restrained perspective is either an indication of immaturity or a pumping up of oneself as more important than others. But you continue to behave as if you’re equivalent to the first century Christian martyrs.

First you are anything but calm in you language, as proof is the saying I’m acting like a martyr. You are the one with the chip on the shoulder. The idea of some changing the sex they live as seems to cause you to have a caniption. When it is someone you don’t know I don’t why you even care. believe me I’m not really fired up. just rolling the eyes is all. I have not judged anyone’s suffering but my own., when I made the kidneystone comparison. Please don’t even think of comparing me to anyone uniformed. Ive been boning up on this issue for close to a 1/3 of a century. Yes since way back in the 1970’s. Ive studyed this from multiple angles as I have other subjects. Please dont call me hatefull! I save that attitude for the proabortion side of the right to life issue. Walk a mile in my shoes. With the way you think it should be a cake walk, But I think you will be out after one step.

 

[StevenFrancis]

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?

As with any sinner, he/she would need to contemplate and assemble a moral inventory, and with a contrite heart, use the sacrament of reconciliation. After a meaningful and equally contrite performance of penance, and reunion with the body of Christ through the sacrament of Eucharist, then the refreshed Christian person would turn away from sin, to the best of their ability, and live a good sacramental life in the Church. Any disfigurements to the body, which are not within the means of the person to correct, would be carried as that persons cross in life. Hopefully the suffering felt by the person in day to day life would be accepted in an redemptive and grateful way, by faith that one is accomplishing a degree of temporal purgation prior to their death, but also, one might eventually be led to a ministry of outreach to those considering the act of transexual disfigurement, without having given spiritual weight to the consequences. Just as there is a large movement of women who regret their abortions, called “Silent no More”, and men who regret having acted on SSA called “Courage”. We can turn our regrets and challenges into preventative or repairitive help for others.

 

[Elizabeth502]

Excellent, helpful reply, StevenFrancis. And everyone can note that he is replying to the original question, which concerned a situation of being regretful, not one where there was not particularly a consciousness of guilt. His answer parallels the awareness arrived at in a situation I have mentioned several times on CAF, where a woman came to realize in her mind how shallow & purposeless her search for happiness in transgendering was, vs. how deep & permanent the search for God was. (She reversed her surgery.) She indeed had deep regret and viewed the remainder of her life as a reparation for her previous choices and acts. And surely God will be at least as merciful to her as to anyone else repenting and repairing for different kinds of sins, ones more common that we all are guilty of.

Thank you, Steven.

 

[aspawloski4th]

I think ultimately the real debate lies in somethinng deeper and maybe even more abstract than whats being debated here. Either you believe the soul and mind makes the person who he or she is or you believe the body does. While we all can agree God made the human design. Some believe transsexualism happned because nature put the person in the incorrect body thus a deformity, and some God made every one who they are physically. My belief is if nature can do things in the development of a human like intersexuality, albinoism, brain stem only births, autism, bipolar, etc etc etc , it’s only logical that the brain can be female type while in an otheriwse male body. Did God make my body process the ion oxalate incorrectly so as to develope kidneystones easier than most? Of course not, it’s a boo boo of nature I inherited from my dad’s side which he inherited from his mom’s side. well it’s the same things with my transsexuaity, my being born in the wrong sex body. Nature is at fault. It’s a fallen world, nature makes mistakes