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pathia
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Do a search on “intersexed catholic” to get my life’s story. More than I ever even intended to say outside of a novel!
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Dan_Grelinger
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I am very sorry for the isolation that has resulted that is caused by the situation that you are in. It may not mean much to you, but it is something that I wanted to offer. I would not want to be in your shoes.
Some of the isolation may be a result of your actions, and this is something that you do control. We all have our crosses, (I have one that I carry that has prevented me from becoming a biological father). Others, such as you, have even tougher crosses to carry. If your focus is on happiness in this life, then I think you will be forever dissappointed. Christ never promised us happiness in this life, only in the next. I know that you’ve been told that before, but I believe it is true.
Sincerely, Dan
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pathia
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Then I will leave the church, because it has left me behind for all time. I will not leave my fiance to come home from Iraq and struggle alone just ‘to be safe’
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seekerz
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Please don’t do that Pathia. The very fact that God allowed you to be born this way and didn’t call you to himself before birth means that he accepts you as you are. I understand it’s rough, but maybe he sent you here to teach some of us what it really means to love unconditionally.
If there’s anything I believe about the Catholic church, it’s that this is where God really meant his children to have true communion with him. Don’t abandon this precious gift from that the only One who has always truly, truly loved you exactly as you are.
You know what? This isn’t even really about what people say or how they relate to you. This is about you taking your rightful stand in your Father’s house. That’s the big picture. The detailed picture may be so complicated and painful that it often clouds the bigger one.
So many perish for lack of faith; hold fast to yours. If there’s anything that needs changing in your life, not only will he give you the wisdom to see it, but the grace to do it. If (and that may be) it’s simply a burden he’s called you to bear, he’ll give you the strength (sometimes if feels like weakness but you know it’s strength because you keep going even when you can’t understand how).
Some of us resist anything or anyone that’s different, complicated or falls outside our narrow sphere of interests. We’d rather reject than make the effort to open our minds to understand the not so simple issues of life. On behalf of all of those of my brothers and sisters who’d rather not relate to you than exert the effort to understand your complicated issues, I sincerely apologize.
I’d never presume to even give an opinion on your situation in terms of the rights and wrongs. I’m no theologian and even these (perhaps more than the general congregation) acknowledge that life has it’s conundrums. All I know is that the One-who-loves-you-as-you-are called you by his grace into this family, therefore you belong.
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cor
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pathia, I found something for you.
jimmyakin.typepad.com/defensor_fidei/2005/06/intersexed_marr.html
It addresses the question you were having about whether you as an intersex person could marry.
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pathia
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It addresses the question yes, the key issue however is that the Chuch will not recognize me getting corrective surgery. Everyone I’ve spoken to with the Church says it’s the same as the surgery Transsexuals have, so it would be considered mutilation of my body and thus invalidate me for marriage.
But that’s just it, I am utterly sterile and barren. Only by the grace of God could I ever have a child, because this is how he saw fit to have me be born. There is nothing to damage, I was born ‘damaged’.
However, if I had had it done as an infant they seem to support that, this is where I get very very confused.
The Church seems to be okay with unconsenting intersexed infants getting surgery to assign a gender, but not with consenting adults. ie: I was already ‘assigned’ once at birth, and that is not allowed to be corrected.
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LittleDeb
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Actually, the CMA (Catholic Medical Association) supports only using corrective measures on infants to create functional elimination systems. They have said they do not recommend assigning a gender at birth. In the cases they followed, those who had been raised according to their human dignity alone were able to articulate strongly what their sex was as they entered a communicative stage. And as JPII has said, it was always one or the other, never both or neither.
Pathia, I can sympathize on a minor level (very minor) as to how it feels to be rejected both medically and spiritually for what is broken in us. Both of our situations are tough. I “look” perfectly healthy. My reproductive troubles don’t show on the outside. You “looked” like a boy at birth. Please forgive them, they knew not what they did. Please stay in the Church and be a witness for understanding. The more you are able to show the vast differences between those with sexual perversions and those with congenital malformations the better things will get.
Having met people from both camps, I am very aware there is a difference. The Church will be able to rule on this eventually. Please be an instrument for Her to show the Truth of God. Your commitment to chastity is commendable. It is also one of the things that hints to me that you are in fact legitimate in your claim. If you are called to life-long celibacy embrace that as a gift from God. There is no virtue in forced celibacy. It is only in acknowledging that it is a ‘sacrifice embraced’ that shows its true value.
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LittleDeb
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I have a feeling that in the coming years this will have a great effect on how to discern the difference. Most people who suffer from lack of reproduction are just infertile. Very few people are actually born completely sterile. There is a difference. Infertile means everything is present and accounted for, while being sterile means that a major component is missing.
From what I have read in Catholic sources, that is one of the major directions that needs to be looked at. If there is a testicle, can it produce even one sperm? If there is an ovary does it have eggs, and if so are those eggs actual eggs or just empty shells? What if there is one of each? does one work and not the other? Do both work? (The implications of that one are a little tough to even comprehend.) I am thinking that true sterility from birth would be a pretty clear indicator of a malformation.
I bring it up because one of the people I know, fathered a child and is now reassigned and living as a woman. During his married life, he voiced many sexual perversions. I can’t judge his or her heart, but is one of the people I believe is probably living in a mutilated body. <<Disclaimer–this is just my opinion! I try to accept her in all her human dignity and I do not ever think I am able to judge the state of her soul.>>
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pathia
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Depending on how one defines things, I sort of have both. The tissue is sort of…undefined, quite literally what I have is sort as if I was still in the womb, not quite grown yet. Both attempts at estrogen and testosterone did nothing to ‘mature’ my cells there. In fact, I’ve been told several times by doctors to just have it all removed, because it’s rather a huge cancer risk.
That’s very good news, for far more than just me. I knew that the AMA was starting to turn around on this view, but I didn’t know about the CMA.
The operations that were done to me were said to be to do just that, but it really didn’t accomplish this. Ironically from what I’ve seen with myself and others, often unless it’s well, ‘blocked’ work on things down there to make ‘elimination systems function properly’ often end up causing more problems than they fix when done at birth.
This is just me and a few others I know though, so it’s not a statistical sample, but it stands out to me. Doctors for a long time cared about looks, moreso than whether or not it worked and would damage working parts because they didn’t look right within the norm. This borders on TMI, but this is one of the stranger ‘gifts’. Due to those surgeries I am…unfeeling as a result. Chastity is far ‘easier’ for myself than my fiance as a result.
The CMA’s stance seems very different from what I’ve heard when speaking to priests, maybe this is just an effect of lag of time of new understandings. I am fully aware that I’m rather a rare case. Pretty much every priest told me their information non-definitively because every single one had never been approached with this particular problem before.
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seekerz
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The thing I can’t grasp is, how can surgery for someone like Pathia be termed “mutilation” when surgery to address just about every other ‘malformation’ (excuse the term, but I can’t think of a better word) I’ve ever heard of, is okay. Shouldn’t your motivation for having surgery count in the equation? It’s not like someone wanting to change their sex because of a perverted mindset.
For example, if a person has plastic surgery to make their lips fuller and more attractive that would obviously be wrong. If a child is born with a cleft lip and has similar surgery to correct it, the doctor would be considered an ‘angel of mercy’.
Of course in the case of surgery on the sexual organs there are wider implications but the idea that surgery in these cases is somehow unacceptable is what I just don’t get.
For example, if a person has plastic surgery to make their lips fuller and more attractive that would obviously be wrong. If a child is born with a cleft lip and has similar surgery to correct it, the doctor would be considered an ‘angel of mercy’.
Of course in the case of surgery on the sexual organs there are wider implications but the idea that surgery in these cases is somehow unacceptable is what I just don’t get.
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Dan_Grelinger
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For someone with traits of both sexes, would it be reconstructive, moving towards one sex, and mutilation, towards the other? I don’t think the current state of teaching would suggest that it could be reconstructive in both directions for a particular person. Given that, there would need to be a determination of which way is reconstructive. This may (I don’t know enough about the specifics) explain the hesitancy of the Church to accept the surgery that pathia is seeking. If most physical attributes are male, then moving away from that towards the female may be construed as mutilation. One might suggest that the type of sexual attraction might be a determining factor, but for obvious reasons, this is likely discounted by the Church in preference to the physical attributes.
Dan
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LittleDeb
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It isn’t viewed as mutilation. That is the whole point of the story in the link to Jimmy Akin’s blog. It is precisely because of the sinful people with sexual perversion that at this point the Church cannot rule for sure, that the motivation for Pathia’s surgery is in fact True. The Church doesn’t move on a hunch. She moves only on authentic Truth.
It is a case not of “one bad apple has spoiled the whole barrel,” but one of “a whole bunch of bad apples have spoiled it for the one good apple.” There are obviously some out there who believe that feelings alone determine sexual identification and that every person who feels that way is in fact, that way, and needs to change. (Hence the OP’s original concern and question.) The Church disagrees. She does not base our eternal salvation on mere feelings.
Once again, our sinful nature is galloping ahead in technology without examining the theology first. (Other examples: Contraception devices, IVF, abortion, and cloning.) Or to paraphrase the line from Jurassic Park, “They are just asking ‘can we?’ They are not asking ‘should we?’”
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LittleDeb
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BTW, I keep forgetting to say this. Great post!
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seekerz
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Thank you. It was the least I could do.BTW, I keep forgetting to say this. Great post!
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Verisimilitude
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I have to admit, after reading your post history and story, you have achieved the very rare: leaving me without an opinion.
But then I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t make one anyway, so take it as such.
I also find sincerity rare, and yours rings true. Because it rings true I would agree with a few others that what ever you do will be decided with the care it deserves, and think in your case it would be as right as right could be in such a situation.
Since I don’t think God gives people diseases for any reason, I don’t think He caused you to be this way for any reason. Some things just are. However, since your heart/sincerity seems true it would not, IMO, be agaist God to follow where your heart leads.
What I can relate to is questioning doctrine. Even when I might disagree with it (which isn’t that much, but significant enough) I often understand why a particular position is taken, and ultiamtely come to accept it as my own- mostly- not always. I have hope He knows my sincerity.
Just as some things are, some things will remain unknown so we must use our best judgements to get through them. Afterall it is and always remains an individual journey despite who we walk with. I’m not one to give superficial comfort to avoid sensitive issues. If I thought it would be “wrong” I would not have responded just for the sake of saying so on a chat board, but would have thought it, but neither am I saying surgery/marriage…is “right”. I don’t/can’t know.
Why I responded is because I think a sincere heart guided by the Holy Spirit specifically in the Catholic Church will lead you to the most approriate decision, and if done in that light I do not know how anyone could disagree with such a reasoned decision.
Tenacity is good: Luke 5:5-10.
Keep knocking.
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LittleDeb
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I am sorry. I was mistaken. I went searching for my source. The article I was remembering was from an inter-religious medical association not the CMA. I tried to search it out on the CMA site but their “search this site” search engine just sent me to MSN’s search page. Bummer.
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The_Catholic
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Yes this is my point, thank you. I wasn’t talking about people born with traits of both male and female, but a person born male, totalty and physically male, but “feels” like a woman inside, so therefore they want to change into a woman by surgery. And when they do they’re still not able to bare children, and have to clean their woman parts everyday so to keep them from infection,(sorry, but I don’t know how else to explain it). And vice versa for females wanting to become males based on inner “feelings” and NOT physical scientific defects. To me this seems evil. I’mn not going to judge or condem anyone for this, God forbid, but because I feel it’s evil I’m cast aside. But that’s expected.
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LittleDeb
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I’m glad to read that I am understanding you correctly. Yes it is evil to change the body from one sex to the other. Those who currently support the movement don’t even know what they are supporting.
So instead of letting the moment cast you aside, use it to converse if possible. By acknowledging that you are aware of the fact that there are those whose genitals do not match their sex, you open the door for communication. It is a fact. They knew it back in biblical times. They just had no way of correcting the problems. The Scripture on eunuchs does show that if read carefully. They are listing some different types, but they are really showing that ALL eunuchs are called to celibacy. Corrective surgery means one is no longer a eunuch. First acknowledge all of these facts, then get into the theology.
That is when you ask how one knows positively that each of these people is in fact a person whose sex doesn’t match their genitals. Are feelings enough? Feelings are misleading. Do they just know? Knowledge is fleeting. Ask, “How do you know that you are not passively participating in a mutilation?” People who cut themselves also do it because it ‘feels’ right. If the answer they give is, “Well the professionals have said they are the opposite sex…” Then refer to this article www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=398 The professional here realized he was making a mistake. Good professionals don’t think they are all-knowing. Because the real question is, “what if they are wrong?” Ask if it is worth it to mutilate even one person just to further the cause. Is one life so insignificant?
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mapleoak
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No, corrective surgery is not mutilation.
This is what I perceived to be what was originally being asked. This would be mutilation.
In Christ - J.M.J.
Mapleoak
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