Transgender and communion?

[ConstantLearner]

Excellent example. It took me a long time to be correctly diagnosed with anxiety because my symptoms don’t present in a way that is typical and I had a very difficult time explaining what I felt. Feel, feelings, felt. These are very difficult to express and are very divergent. How anxiety manifests with me varies from episode to episode. And a feeling I would have once described as “vague” is very distinct symptom, now that I know what it is. Some are still very vague and not knowing how to explain it is frustrating. I don’t have the language. Transgender people often don’t either.

I have a similar experience with anxiety symptoms.

Years ago, I began having muscle twitches below my waist only. They didn’t hurt, but were terribly unannoying. I had MRIs, CT scans, etc., and after I’d spent about $10,000 doctors finally came to the conclusion that I was “just stressed.” Well, I was stressed, because of the muscle spasms.

Twenty years later, I had blood work that was far more extensive than I’d ever had before. It tums out I was severely deficient in magnesium. I was put on supplementation, and the twitches stopped. So much for it being “all in my head” and “just stress.”

 

[Thorolfr]

This is also a thing that is written in the genes. Although physical ambiguity is biologically possible, bodily gender is rarely ambiguous. When the genitalia correspond to the DNA of the person, the physical gender is clear. There may be a distressing confusion in which the self-concept seated in the brain does not match one’s physical body, but that doesn’t make the physical body wrong.

So, just out of curiosity, if someone is Intersex with androgen insensitivity syndrome and is XY but grows up looking physically female and even thinking that they’re female until they fail to menstruate at puberty, is this person male as their chromosomes indicate or are they female as their outward physical body indicates? Since this person’s chromosomes say that they are male, would it be acceptable for such a person to have a double mastectomy and have a penis surgically constructed so that their body matches their XY chromosomes?

 

[OraLabora]

Here’s the kicker, most with AIS are apparently perfectly happy with the gender they appear to be.

Yet they are genetically male.

Are they being delusional? Of course not. Their brains developed as female brains as they did not, could not, respond to testosterone.

Now, AIS has a wide range of expression, from full AIS to partial. It could very well be that gender dysphoria is a form of AIS.

Research will eventually tell. If I croak before it does, I’ll ask God if I make it to heaven

 

[ConfusedLucy]

This is why I’m pedantic and use the term phenotypically female. Someone with XY AIS is phenotypically female and will have been raised and socialized as a woman.

 

[PetraG]

I have made no such claim and make no such claim. I consider transgenderism to be a very real condition of unknown etiology but which is an active field of research with some evidence suggesting a biological basis. So I will try to keep an open mind in spite of my own prejudices.

It is a real condition that can’t be defined?

 

[PetraG]

I have made no such claim and make no such claim. I consider transgenderism to be a very real condition of unknown etiology but which is an active field of research with some evidence suggesting a biological basis. So I will try to keep an open mind in spite of my own prejudices.

It is a real condition that can’t be defined?

This is why I’m pedantic and use the term phenotypically female. Someone with XY AIS is phenotypically female and will have been raised and socialized as a woman.

Why should the most easily-identifiable sense of the term be the one that carries the long qualifier?
Female is a biological term refers to a condition that is only rarely ambiguous. It makes more sense to drag in qualifiers for the common condition, not the rare one.

 

[OraLabora]

It is a real condition that can’t be defined?

Re-read what I said. I said it was a real condition of *unknown etiology". I did not say it couldn’t be defined. Many real medical conditions can be defined and accurately described, but that have unknown etiology. In fact most conditions at one time or another were of “unknown etiology”. As was mine, hereditary hemochromatosis, until the genetic cause was discovered in 1996. Though the mechanism remains poorly understood, it, and its effects, have been accurately described for many decades. Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are of unknown etiology as well, yet their effects and outcomes are well-described in the literature.

 

[PetraG]

I did not say it couldn’t be defined.

You haven’t defined what makes someone male or female, except their testimony. That isn’t an identifable characteristic, but a matter of self-regard. That doesn’t mean it is meaningless, but does it belong on a driver’s license? I mean, I suppose “preferred pronoun of address” could, but why would that have to depend on gender, either? Do you have a reason that someone has to consider themselves male or female to be uncomfortable with some pronoun or other?

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s have externally-measurable symptoms. Someone can go to a doctor, say “I am convinced I have Parkinson’s” and yet be demonstrably incorrect–convinced, yet objectively confused about their condition.

Under what conditions could someone stick with the impression that they are a certain gender and yet be incorrect? If there aren’t any, then it is the person’s self-identification that defines gender, rather than any other quality about them. Unless a quality could conceivably disqualify the person’s consistent self-assessment, it does not belong in the definition of what gender means.

If you want to talk about a cultural construct, by the way…

 

[ConfusedLucy]

I think when most people say female they mean in the phenotypical sense, someone with female anatomy. Obviously most female humans are 46 XX, a tiny minority 46 XY AIS, another minority 45 X0. A phenotypically male human can have feminising treatments but can never become phenotypically female.

 

[Thorolfr]

Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s have externally-measurable symptoms. Someone can go to a doctor, say “I am convinced I have Parkinson’s” and yet be demonstrably incorrect–convinced, yet objectively confused about their condition.

It’s not as easy to diagnose Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s or most other psychiatric conditions as what you seem to suggest. A website on Parkinson’s says that it “can be challenging to accurately diagnose, particularly in early stages of the disease.” The same is true of Alzheimer’s as well. There was an article last year in the Washington Post which said:

A significant portion of people with mild cognitive impairment or dementia who are taking medication for Alzheimer’s may not actually have the disease, according to interim results of a major study underway to see how PET scans could change the nature of Alzheimer’s diagnosis and treatment.

The findings, presented Wednesday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in London, come from a four-year study launched in 2016 that is testing over 18,000 Medicare beneficiaries with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or dementia to see if their brains contain the amyloid plaques that are one of the two hallmarks of the disease.

So far, the results have been dramatic. Among 4,000 people tested so far in the Imaging Dementia-Evidence for Amyloid Scanning (IDEAS) study, researchers from the Memory and Aging Center at the University of California at San Francisco found that just 54.3 percent of MCI patients and 70.5 percent of dementia patients had the plaques…

“If someone had a putative diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, they might be on an Alzheimer’s drug like Aricept or Namenda,” said James Hendrix, the Alzheimer Association’s director of global science initiatives who co-presented the findings. “What if they had a PET scan and it showed that they didn’t have amyloid in their brain? Their physician would take them off that drug and look for something else.”

For decades, diagnosing Alzheimer’s has been a guessing game, based on looking at a person’s symptoms rather than testing for definitive evidence of the brain disorder. A firm diagnosis was not possible until an autopsy was performed.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nati...ory.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.a5a65005b544

 

[PetraG]

The doctor you quoted said there was a way to conclude: “No, this patient does not have Alzheimer’s and should not be treated for Alzheimer’s.”

Is it possible to conclude that a person with a consistent sense that their physical gender is wrong is incorrect? If not, how is anything other indication of gender even part of the definition? You can say, “oh, but there are people with ambiguous physical characteristics, such that they can have quality X and yet not be in that group.” Sure, but that is because there is a list of physical characteristics that are seen as a whole. If there is one characteristic that always trumps all the rest on its own, however, then that characteristic is what actually defines the term.

Besides, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are progressive conditions. Are you saying that gender is a progressive condition, as well, something like obesity or physical fitness that someone can develop when they didn’t used to have it?

 

[Thorolfr]

The doctor you quoted said there was a way to conclude: “No, this patient does not have Alzheimer’s and should not be treated for Alzheimer’s.”

Scanning for amyloid plaques could be a potential breakthrough in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, but this is quite new and PET scans are still very expensive and most insurance companies still don’t cover the cost. In general, the underlying biological mechanisms of most psychiatric conditions are not well understood and a lot of the diagnosis process relies on a clinical interview with the patient where the main source of information is the patient’s own reports of his/her symptoms. There is no blood test or brain scan that can be done in most cases to render a foolproof diagnosis.

Maybe someday, there will be a breakthrough in diagnosing GID that will show that it is due to a specific difference in the brain or a specific set of genes or to certain epigenetic causes. Until then, diagnosing GID might be similar to what one doctor said about Alzheimer’s that I posted above, “a guessing game, based on looking at a person’s symptoms rather than testing for definitive evidence of the brain disorder.”

 

[OraLabora]

You haven’t defined what makes someone male or female, except their testimony.

What makes 99.7% of us male or female (phenotypically or genetically) is obvious.

For the 0.3% that are transgendered, their perception is not congruent with their physical attributes.

Apart from those trying to make political statements, for most of those 0.3% they have a very clear idea about what makes someone male or female. As crystal clear as the majority of us. They just recognize that the body is not congruent with their self-perception of their gender.

Why that occurs, is as of yet not clearly known, just as we don’t know why Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s occurs. But we do know it occurs and just like with many disorders there are typical and atypical patterns and some individual variation, to its presentation.

But the transgendered does know what a woman or man is even if they perceive themselves to be of the opposite gender. In order to want to be of the opposite gender, they need to understand what the attributes for that gender are.

It’s more than their testimony. If you read any description of transgenderism the words “deep-seated” are used to describe their self-perception. That is stronger than mere testimony. It permeates to the very core of their being.

Again, I would suggest that you actually talk to, and listen, to the transgendered. You seem to dismiss the experiential as part of scientific investigation. It is essential to understanding what the transgendered are living.

 

[StephieNorthCo]

Just to amplify what Ora is pointing out, virtually ALL the transgender and the intersex people I know understand and ratify the binary nature of gender. They are male or they are female, regardless of how they may appear. After undergoing appropriate treatment, such they externally and internally match, there is an enormous reduction in internal stress.

For all intersex, and many transgender, failure to take corrective action WILL result in death. More than one has said, they got corrective surgery because to “live with it” was tantamount to suicide.

 

[PetraG]

Scanning for amyloid plaques could be a potential breakthrough in diagnosing Alzheimer’s, but this is quite new and PET scans are still very expensive and most insurance companies still don’t cover the cost. In general, the underlying biological mechanisms of most psychiatric conditions are not well understood and a lot of the diagnosis process relies on a clinical interview with the patient where the main source of information is the patient’s own reports of his/her symptoms. There is no blood test or brain scan that can be done in most cases to render a foolproof diagnosis.

Maybe someday, there will be a breakthrough in diagnosing GID that will show that it is due to a specific difference in the brain or a specific set of genes or to certain epigenetic causes. Until then, diagnosing GID might be similar to what one doctor said about Alzheimer’s that I posted above, “a guessing game, based on looking at a person’s symptoms rather than testing for definitive evidence of the brain disorder.”

We have a way to diagnose gender. It isn’t an invisible condition.
The question is whether we are going to totally replace a defined sense of gender with a sense that cannot be defined (unless you count “a man is someone who self-identifies as a man” as the definition of a man).

 

[ConstantLearner]

You haven’t defined what makes someone male or female, except their testimony. That isn’t an identifable characteristic, but a matter of self-regard. That doesn’t mean it is meaningless, but does it belong on a driver’s license? I mean, I suppose “preferred pronoun of address” could, but why would that have to depend on gender, either? Do you have a reason that someone has to consider themselves male or female to be uncomfortable with some pronoun or other?

Ir’s been defined many ways on this thread. You sound like you have;t read or understood the posts, or you’d know that.

 

[OraLabora]

We have a way to diagnose gender. It isn’t an invisible condition.

Gender isn’t a condition, it is a state. It therefore doesn’t require diagnosis, just recognition of its attributes (and many of us hold to a minor degree the attributes of the opposite gender without being transgendered). Gender dysphoria requires diagnosis, and there are criteria to arrive at that diagnosis, just as there are criteria for Alzheimer’s, ALS, Parkinson’s, etc.

Nobody is talking about replacing a defined sense of gender with a something nebulous. As pointed out above, the transgendered are very much able to define gender. They don’t seek to reverse our notion of gender, they seek to change their own physical gender to match their perceived gender.

You seem to be stuck on a few oddballs making a political statement/rebelling against whatever, and conflate that with clinical transgenderism. It is a clinical condition, with typical presentation (and a few atypical cases and some individual differences in presentation). There are clinical treatments for it, the ethics of which one can certainly debate, but there are no ethics attached to being transgendered, no more than being gay or having brown eyes or being left-handed. My father was left-handed and was beaten by his teachers to try to make him right-handed; he was born in 1913. Thankfully we don’t do that anymore and we shouldn’t discriminate against the transgendered, or gays, either. Trying to convert them won’t make them cis-gendered or heterosexual any more than trying to beat being a southpaw out of my father was successful

Transgendered is not someone trying to make a statement, or blur the lines between the genders, or being rebellious against the patriarchy/stereotypes/whatever, or trying to get “female” put on his driver’s licence to get cheaper car insurance (as happened recently in my country).

So quit trying to conflate the clinically transgendered with those cases which are another discussion altogether, and stick to the topic at hand: a transgendered person wanting to receive communion.

 

[ConstantLearner]

We have a way to diagnose gender. It isn’t an invisible condition.

Male genitals and an abundance of testosterone do not make a man. Gender is more than genitals. Love is more than sex. Or do you disagree with that? If you do believe love is more than sex, please tell us all how you measure it.

 

[PetraG]

Gender is more than genitals.

If someone can say that they do not belong to a sex even though they have the DNA and genitalia of that sex, then those aren’t in the definition of gender at all. They are irrelevant.

Likewise, the marital act belongs to marriage. A marriage that is not consummated by the marital act is not a valid marriage. Sex does indeed belong to the definition of marriage in an undeniable way, then. Those who deny that are re-defining some other relationships as marriages when they are not. And yes, there are those even on this forum who try to deny that the marital act is even relevant to the ultimate definition of what marriage is. The confusion has become that profound.

 

[Thorolfr]

We have a way to diagnose gender. It isn’t an invisible condition.
The question is whether we are going to totally replace a defined sense of gender with a sense that cannot be defined (unless you count “a man is someone who self-identifies as a man” as the definition of a man).

You keep talking about defined vs. not defined and seem to assume that only physical characteristics or things that can be measured with a test or a scan can be defined whereas people’s feelings and perceptions cannot be defined. Well, a great many psychiatric conditions and disorders are mostly determined by patient self reports. Every time I go to my doctor’s office now, they give me a questionnaire to fill out to screen for anxiety or depression. This seems to be a new policy by many doctors generally to be more proactive in screening for these disorders. The questionnaire looks like this:

Over the last 2 weeks, how often have you been bothered
by any of the following problems?

• Feeling nervous, anxious or on edge?
• Not being able to stop or control worrying?
• Worrying too much about different things?
• Trouble relaxing
• Being so restless that it is hard to sit still?
• Becoming easily annoyed or irritable?
• Feeling afraid as if something awful might happen?

For each of those things it asks you to mark one of the following: Not at all, Several days, More than half the days, Nearly every day.

If someone marked that they had all those feelings nearly every day, they’d probably refer that patient to a psychologist or psychiatrist and he might get diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD). But, of course, perhaps the patient was just lying and didn’t have any of those feelings at all. There’s no foolproof way for a psychiatrist to find this out. But, assuming that most people are honest about their feelings and if they have a certain number of specific kinds of feelings that have been defined in the DSM, then it is likely that a psychologist or a psychiatrist will determine that they have GAD. And this is mostly based on self-reported feelings by the patient.

So, why shouldn’t a person’s self perception of their gender be an important part of how someone’s gender is determined in the same way that someone’s perceived feelings of fear and nervousness and worry are used to determine that they have GAD?

And even though we don’t yet know the mechanism behind things like GAD, it is likely that there is a biological component to it.