Transgender child and parents

[heilotes]

Ok, because I’m such a blabber mouth I’m going to have to do this in two posts:

I guess I’ll just start off by explaining my situation in life and the problems it is causing at home with my parents.

I am a 27 year old transgendered person, I was born male and believe my inner being to be more oriented as being female or womanly. So I hve been taking steps to align my body with the gender in my mind. This was never a decision I made in the past,I recall as child feeling that I wished I was a girl because girls had the life I wanted for myself. But I wouldn’t say it was particularly strong at this point, more like a nagging feeling and discomfort with having a penis and being expected to uphold the ideals of boyhood. I suspect at this point I most tucked my feelings away as my androgynous child body allowed me to not have any strong objection outside of that nagging feeling in the back of my mind. But then my body changed around 10-12 and I recall my first dark black body hair and discovering it in the bathroom at the library. I was so repulsed that my body was becoming more masculine and I pruned that hair only to find it multiplied very quickly after doing so. Before I knew it my body was changing into an adolescent man’s body. My nagging feelings compounded as these changes took place. While its normal to be curious about girls at this point in life, I found myself more interested in their lives and I started to emulate their behaviors and customs whenever I had a private moment at home. I’d dress in my mom’s clothes and pretend I was having female guests over for dinner and chat. I’d re-enact the motions and actions I’d observed women doing in my life. Before long I was more or less living my private life alone just going through the everyday motions (hanging out online, reading, doing homework, ect.) but pretending I was female. Often times I would dress the part and fantasize about how things might be different if I were born female, I wondered about my relationships with my friends and how they would be different if I were a young woman. I wondered about the boys I would date in high school and eventually college. By the time I went to college I found my prayers to be miraculously transformed over night by divine power into a woman had not come true.

 

[heilotes]

So as the only way I knew how, I mantained my connection to this woman inside my mind through crossdressing and daydreaming. Eventually I went away to England for graduate school where I quickly met various transgendered people , by daring to go into the public eye dressed as a woman. From them I learned that there were ways to feminize the exterior of the body as a means of alleviating the anguish I felt as a person trapped in the wrong body (cliché phrase I know, but it hits pretty close to home). I learned it was possible to change one’s place in society and join the opposite sex side of gender roles. Many of the people I met went as far as vaginaplasty (or sex reassignment surgery) to invert their penis tissues and organs so as to create a vagina, or at least something that strongly resembled one in form and function. Though at this point in time, creating or transplanting a uterus and creating pregnancy and childbirth is still not possible. Some of the transwomen I met elected not to undergo this procedure, They were happy with just the gender role change and having a body that more closely matched their minds. On the walk home and many other long walks afterwards, I decided I wanted to make the change. It wasn’t that grass just looked greener on the otherside, it was more like the grass was dead on this side, as a male I was just going through the motions and, despite a few moments of happiness, I was mostly depressed and longing for a magical change to just occur painlessly, I was not happy with my life as it felt like I was living someone else’s life and not my own. So I began to think that maybe aligning my body closer to what I could see was my true identity would give me some life and a better feeling of my purpose in life and a closer feeling of God, as at this point I was so disappointed and defeated God felt like a cold thing or idea that people in high vaulted buildings talked about but I couldn’t really understand like they seemed to. As a child when I was living in stealth in my androgynous body my relationship with God was much stronger and I could feel his goodness radiate from all around me. But since I had fallen away into my own pit of dispair, God felt distant and untouchable. So I thought maybe just being me might restore that tangible goodness I once felt. My male body was such an endless source of angst and unhappiness that I saw no point to life anymore my future had no meaning and I couldn’t see the future for me as anything I would find fulfillment in. Being transgendered was an unsurmountable mountain. I couldn’t see ever getting over it. But maybe if I’d done what the women I’d met had done I’d finally overcome it. So I decided I wanted to do it and I needed to take my first steps that night. With a good dose of liquid courage I called my mom over skype and told her about my “gender issues” and what I wanted to do about it. She was visibly concerned and worried. I felt mostly guilty for ever having been born to come into her life only to inflict this pain. We hung up and looked into the mirror and saw that male face looking back. I felt awful and thought about acting on one of my various suicide plans (my whole life I’ve had a sort of an obsession and fascination with suicide to the point of having various scenarios planned out should I ever feel the need to do it. My dorm building was high enough that I was sure the fall would kill me, so I planned to jump and set about leaving my note and various artifacts to be found after my demise. Then something stopped me. I wa hoping for something with grandeur like the Angel stopping the sacrifice of Isaac ( I hope I have that Bible reference correct). But t was more a little feeling that I should think about this a little harder. I faced that person in the mirror and talked to him. I asked him if he really wanted to die like this. He cried and called his mother to confess his guilt and embaressment to her. I lived after that and on the walk to mass that Sunday I felt a moment of revelation. I studied a tree on the path to our little church and marveled at God’s work. It fascinated me that it looked like it took a genius artisan to make such a beautiful, organic, feeding and breathing thing like this. Through something as simple as a tree I finally felt the presence of God in this world again. I held back my tears at mass that morning and I thanked God I was alive. And because I was feeling quite sure that there was a guiding hand in my life and an ultimate purpose in my life I agreed with my mom not to change my body into that resembling a woman’s body through hormones and other various means. I figured why not try it out, it couldn’t hurt. Eventually I found myself back from grad school and living with my family again and in therapy with a Catholic therapist who specialized in helping gay individuals cope with their feelings and somehow live a ‘normal’ life. I figured, that since being trans wasn’t very distant from being gay, though they are veery different, I thought maybe he could help me ind a life as a hetero male that I could be happy with. At the end of working with him, I felt sufficiently convinced I could continue as a public male and still satisfy my need to be a woman in the privacy of my home. I had no desire to have sex as a woman and knew I would never hurt anyone. I just needed to find the right woman to love and marry who would at least understand my predicament and guide me and help me as I lived two lives, but on the surface I would appear totally normal and happy. In hindsight that could never have worked. But I thought it might at the time. in 2011 I took a job teaching English in Tokyo. which is a whole different story.

 

[heilotes]

But on July 29th I woke up in the morning with left side paralysis and a killed headache. I thought I just slept crooked. But a stranger cam to my door that morning and called the hospital. There I learned I was having a pretty massive stroke. But I was in the right place as a medicine only available in Japan saved most of my brain from the damage that was erupting behind my right eyeball. As the night came on I learned my cranium was filling up with blood and the pressure was causing my brain to collapse in on itself. They didn’t operate but left me through the night to see how my body might solve this problem before it became a life threatening problem. So that night I considered my situation and concluded my time on Earth was likely over. I made my petitions to God. And then I spent the rest of my time awake to consider my life for 26 years. It hurt me to think about it. I’d spent so much wallowing in anger, hatred and self-loathing. I thought about the opportunities I passe up. Most of them because I feared losing the connection I had to the woman inside through crossdressing and daydreaming. I’d lived a half-lived life. I then wished I’d tried more ambitious things with expressing who I believed myself to truly be. I wished that back in 2009 at grad school I’d found a way to stay in the UK and go on hormones and alter my body to have the body I’d wanted for so long, to have the gender role I’d longed for and my male like ghad failed so miserably and completely to fulfill. I decided that if I lived through this ordeal, I wasn’t going to continue to make the same mistakes of hiding and covering who I really was inside. So obviously I lived through that ordeal and spent the next two months in the hospital, going to therapy and researching how I might go about the ‘transitioning’ (trans people call the whole sex change thing transitioning, sorry i just like to keep people on the in with the terms I use). So I got out of the hospital and registered with a gender specialist therapist. I haven’t started hormones yet as my stroke complicates things in my case. But I intend to go full time as a woman and juat live life as I am. When the next time to die comes, hopefully at a ripe old age, I can’t bear the thought of dying with the regrets I had on the night of July 29th.
So that’s the bulk of my life, sorry for the long post, but here’s the part I need help with: My mom knows I am going out with friends and dressing like a woman. I sometimes come home with traces of make up still on my face. I tend to get a blend of anger and denial. I try reasoning with her, but she’s pretty firmly set in her train of thought. She says that I have emotional issues stemming from my childhood days of not having a strong male rolemodel (my dad worked a lot) and my mom was mostly preoccupied with my three brothers so I concluded somewhere, “if I can’t have my mother I’ll be my mother” (her words not mine, I don’t think that ever happened). So therefore she says I’m going about this the wrong way and I’m just feeding my sickness and that I’m failing to recognize I’m disordered. I disagree with her on a number of points, which I’ll spare you here, but I feel like I’ve always been like this and that it scares me because I see no believable future for me as a male, just more empty motions. But when I think of my future as a woman, I see happiness and a better life living without hiding. But then today Her anger denial sort of turned to a type of depression. I told her I loved her and knew she loved me even if she disagreed with my choices. She said she loved me and she was terribly worried about me to the point of insomnia and wanting to vomit. I see that she feels like she might be losing me instead of witnessing a transformation that is going to free me and bring me closer to God and more harmonious between mind, souls and body. It hurts me so much to see her feel so pained and worried about me. But for my own sake I don’t see any way out. I’ve already seriously thought about suicide since leaving the hospital (when I learned my stroke might exclude me from hormones about two months ago, luckily still alive though). I know she feels like I am dying to her, but I’m still going to be alive though s a woman. However if I continue to try and live as a male I think I might consider suicide more seriously to the point of attempting. It honestly terrifies me to think I might have another half a lifetime living so blandly, I can’t bear to do that.

I pray that there was an easier way where I didn’t have to hurt my family so much to just have a more fulfilling life. So I guess I’m writing this here because I imagine people on these boards have a similar viewpoint as my mother and I’m hoping perhaps different phrasing and a different situation might make her opiinions and ideas make more sense to me. Advice is of course welcome. Of course questions are also welcome. I’ll answer them here or in prvate message if you like. However if you feel compelled to belittle or slander me because of how I feel, I think you might be shooting yourself in the foot as I’ll only be more determined to never ask outside opinions again, especially on these boards. on top of thatI’ll just pray for you to not be a jerk. But if you feel like you need to tell me I’m wrong, I’m willing to accept that possibility and welcome challenge to my beliefs and ideas as if they can not withstand test, then I need to rethink them. So if you feel compelled to insult me or hurt me, remember what that famous guy said… oh, I forget his name… “Love your neighbor as yourself.” oh gosh, what was his name? Oh yeah Jesus. So if you read through the whole thing, my sincere thanks. If you skipped around, I understand. But thank you foljs for your time and comments and may God bless you.

 

[Dakota_Roberts]

Your mother is freaking out because she thinks it is her fault you’ve turned out this way, a very similar thing happens to fathers if their son come out as gay. As a result of original sin all sorts of things go wrong such as hormonal mess ups. In the womb the body receives two major hormonal doses, one determines sex of the body and one determines “brain sex”. As the baseline is female and it is androgens that change it towards male it appears there was simply a mishap with the hormones and you didn’t receive enough androgens to properly masculinise your brain causing an already feminine outlook. By unknowingly encouraging your thoughts in a female way you shifted further that way. This is neither a fault of you nor your parents and at 27 there is very little that can be done to make yourself more male. Is mutilating your body the proper way to deal with this? While taking hormones and surgery might make your body more in sync with your feelings you will shift yourself further way from your being. We all have crosses to bear and some have heavier crosses to bear than others.

PS God loves you no matter what.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

Hi,

It must take a lot of courage to put your story out on a site like this, especially when you cannot expect many replies that aren’t contradicting most of what you say. I also understand that you are primarily looking for ways to understand or counter your mother’s argument, and so I hope that in posting here that means you are willing to hear some strongly opposing views. In any case, please do not take this as insulting, I am merely trying to do my best to express the opinion counter to yours succinctly.

**In regards to the therapy/ what your mother said (the “purely practical” side):
**
First, you’ve mentioned suicidal thoughts several times. I would think (though I am not in any way claiming to be an expert or even particularly knowledgeable on this subject) that these thoughts alone demonstrate an issue which you need to get resolved with a therapist, and that this should be done before making permanent life altering decisions of any kind.

Currently, it appears that you think having an operation done will fix all of your issues, but realistically, this is uncertain. A statistic: according to a 2010 msnbc article, 41% of transgender people in America have attempted suicide. It could be, of course, that this is primarily due to rejection that they feel from or the pain that they see in family, friends, and society as a whole. But even if so, you are beginning to see some of that now with your mother’s reaction to your idea. On a purely practical level, there is no particularly convincing reason to think that you would escape whatever causes there are because of a certain physical operation.

So since you already contemplate suicide, and since transgender people in general are at a high risk of suicide, it is reasonable to conclude that that issue will not go away just because of the operation. I would recommend finding another Catholic therapist.

Which brings me to my next point: you said you went to a Catholic therapist already, and left with the conclusion that you would lead a double life, one private one public. My untutored understanding of psychology leads me to believe that no therapist would recommend this (especially a Catholic one, but see the next section). If yours did, it may be worth finding a different therapist, and if yours didn’t it could be that you weren’t quiet as honest with your therapist as you could have been about the plans you were making at the time, or that you simply ignored what the therapist suggested you do. In either case, it might be good to try that again, since that session was unsuccessful (certainly from the point of view that you still have suicidal thoughts and arguably from others as well).

And finally, what your mother said about role models: I have heard that sort of situation described by many people, and it seems like a reasonable explanation. There is a reason why you want to be female. It is either psychological or genetic. There is no evidence that there is a genetic cause of such things. Your main reason to disagree with your mother’s analysis is that you never felt such a thing, but the argument would be that your very actions at a young age demonstrate that you did, but rather than articulate them specifically you instead tried to adapt to them.

The moral/religious side of things:

Once again, forgive me for being rather blunt. I am again trying to be succinct. This may be more likely to come across as an attack because it addressing what you’re saying and doing on a deeper level and even disagrees with what you believe about your own nature and about God. Please believe me when I say it is not meant to be an attack.

You are a man. You are not a woman. If you undergo an operation, you will still be a man, you will just be a man who has had hormones added to his body and surgery on his genitalia.

Men and Women are essentially different. The mere fact that you want to try to be the other one implies that on some level you recognize this. “Male and Female He created them,” as it says in genesis. Furthermore, our bodies are not just shells that we wear and can modify as we desire. We are not souls that wear bodies any more than we are animals that have souls - we are body-souls, spirit-animal hybrids, a unity of the material and the spiritual. Our bodies are a very significant part of who we are.

And they are not ours alone. We belong to God, our body is a temple of Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 6:19: “What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?”

We are made either as males or as females. We cannot change this. We can try, but in so doing we only change what we look like, not who we are. Trying to do this change is contrary to the moral law in a grave way (a serious sin if done with full knowledge, consent of will) because it is opposed to this truth, it treats our bodies as if they were no more than a suit of clothes we could change at will rather than a sacred gift from God.

Thus, and I wish there was a way I could say this that didn’t sound so combative, getting a sex change operation could not bring you closer to God. You MIGHT feel better for a time, but our closeness to God is more than our feelings and such an action would be wrong in a serious way.

From this, it is tempting to proceed by asking “doesn’t God want me to be happy?” After all, you think that the operation is your road to fulfillment and I just told you that God prohibits it. The answer is, of course, yes. But happiness is not a thing that can be pursued at any cost and in fact most of the prohibited methods of pursuit in the long run have the opposite effect.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Your mother is freaking out because she thinks it is her fault you’ve turned out this way, a very similar thing happens to fathers if their son come out as gay. As a result of original sin all sorts of things go wrong such as hormonal mess ups. In the womb the body receives two major hormonal doses, one determines sex of the body and one determines “brain sex”. As the baseline is female and it is androgens that change it towards male it appears there was simply a mishap with the hormones and you didn’t receive enough androgens to properly masculinise your brain causing an already feminine outlook. By unknowingly encouraging your thoughts in a female way you shifted further that way. This is neither a fault of you nor your parents and at 27 there is very little that can be done to make yourself more male. Is mutilating your body the proper way to deal with this? While taking hormones and surgery might make your body more in sync with your feelings you will shift yourself further way from your being. We all have crosses to bear and some have heavier crosses to bear than others.

PS God loves you no matter what.

Dear OP, what is posited here is a THEORY only. No one is sure what it is that gender-confused people have really undergone, or why some people feel that they are the “wrong gender.” There are a lot of theories and a lot of opinions. No one knows for sure. But this poster is right, that having surgery or adding hormones to your body does not honor how God created you.

I would urge you to continue to get counseling since you are going around and around in your mind about what is right/wrong and good for you. I would urge you NOT to do anything to alter your (male) body at this point in time.

 

[Allegra]

I’m sorry to hear that you are under so much stress right now. I can’t say that I understand you mindset and the conclusion that you’ve come to, but I imagine the you must have been in a lot of pain.

I feel I ought to tell you that mutilating your body is not going to really make you into a woman. You will still be a man, you’ll just be a mutilated one. I don’t think it is going to make you happier or fullfilled.

I think you ought to continue with the therapy and see if there isn’t some sort of treatment that can help you combat this obsession and help you to feel better about yourself as you are and not as you imagine yourself to be. I think your efforts to make your body appear female are entirely misplaced. You would do better to invest your time in discovering and developing your own true self. (Your mind, your talents, your relationships with those who love you.) If you don’t feel that you fit into the traditional roles of a man, perhaps God has a purpose for you that isn’t typical. Try to remember that you are created in His image and try to use your whole personhood to glorify Him. Then after a while, you might begin to see yourself more as He sees you and come to be happier in your own skin.

Anyway, you mom is probably upset because she thinks she’s done something wrong and she knows you will regret what you are contimplating doing. I think you might console her by reassuring her that what is going on in your head is not her fault. (Which is certainly true!) You might also guide her toward some of the support groups that are designed for people who have a family member that deals with sexual identity issues.

 

[KerryA02]

heilotes, that was a beautiful and inspiring essay, thank you so much for sharing.

Many of the people I met went as far as vaginaplasty (or sex reassignment surgery) to invert their penis tissues and organs so as to create a vagina, or at least something that strongly resembled one in form and function.

Vaginoplasty surgery has been used on cis women, intersex folks, and trans women for decades. With a good surgeon, the results of the neovagina are indistinguishable from a cis vagina, including arousal. Of course, pregnancy is not an option at this point, but could arise in the future.

As for the comments that such surgery is “mutilation,” those folks should investigate matters further before they make such incorrect conclusions.

And as for the morality of the surgery, here is what Jesus said:

Matthew 19:11 Jesus replied, “Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12 For there are eunuchs who were born that way, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others—and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.”

Jesus taught tolerance towards people who were born eunuchs and those who were made into eunuchs. Since intersex and transgender conditions existed during Jesus’s time, it’s possible that he saw such people and was commenting directly on their situation.

There is also the Catechism, item 2297:

“Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reason, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

It’s not an amputation, it’s a penile inversion. It’s not a mutilation, it’s a corrective surgery. It is a sterilization, but look at the words of jesus - “The one who can accept this should accept it.” Sex correction surgery is a therapeutic medical reason. If your sanity and desire to live depends on this surgery, then it is morally acceptable for you to do it.

If you had a nose where your ear was supposed to be and doctors could correct it for you, no one would complain.

 

[KerryA02]

Dear OP, what is posited here is a THEORY only. No one is sure what it is that gender-confused people have really undergone, or why some people feel that they are the “wrong gender.” There are a lot of theories and a lot of opinions. No one knows for sure. But this poster is right, that having surgery or adding hormones to your body does not honor how God created you.

I would urge you to continue to get counseling since you are going around and around in your mind about what is right/wrong and good for you. I would urge you NOT to do anything to alter your (male) body at this point in time.

TheRealJuliane, why do you assume that heilotes has the “wrong gender?” What if she really is a girl but she has the wrong sex? Why do you base a person’s identity on their external features rather than what’s occurring in their mind/soul?

Isn’t it possible that a transsexual person really does know what’s going on in their head? Let me ask you a question - aren’t you sure that you have the right body? Have you ever doubted your body for even a second? Well, what if someone wakes up every morning and feels like they are in the wrong body? What if one day they wake up and they are sure they are in the wrong body?

And what if it turns out that if they are in the wrong body, and their body is producing too much of the wrong hormone? Would it be medicinally therapeutic to reduce the wrong hormone and inject the correct hormone?

 

[EasterJoy]

TheRealJuliane, why do you assume that heilotes has the “wrong gender?” What if she really is a girl but she has the wrong sex? Why do you base a person’s identity on their external features rather than what’s occurring in their mind/soul?

Isn’t it possible that a transsexual person really does know what’s going on in their head? Let me ask you a question - aren’t you sure that you have the right body? Have you ever doubted your body for even a second? Well, what if someone wakes up every morning and feels like they are in the wrong body? What if one day they wake up and they are sure they are in the wrong body?

And what if it turns out that if they are in the wrong body, and their body is producing too much of the wrong hormone? Would it be medicinally therapeutic to reduce the wrong hormone and inject the correct hormone?

When someone is suicidal, how do you know that it really isn’t possible for them to be happy in this life? How do you know that you’re not wrong and they’re not right? No one who has not been suicidal can imagine what it is like, after all, and even other people who have been suicidal can say they know what it is like for someone else.

How do we know that suicide is morally forbidden? Because the life we have been given is not ours to end. The Church teaches that our gender is not ours to destroy, either.

I cannot help but think the day will come when this will be considered a barbaric solution to what is obviously an extremely difficult problem to face, like a frontal lobotomy once was. Certainly, the Church holds that surgical alteration of a person’s anatomy does not change their true gender, even though such a surgery could be morally acceptable in extreme cases, if considered the only recourse to treat a patient’s inner turmoil: ncronline.org/news/vatican-says-sex-change-operation-does-not-change-persons-gender.

Still, this is a very difficult issue, the persons who want to change their gender really are suffering very profound pain and inner turmoil, and a person who wishes to change their gender deserves every bit as much compassion as a person who is suicidal. Even when the boundaries of what is morally accepteble are clear, this is not a question that can be answered in a flippant manner.

Whatever we don’t agree on, OP, everyone’s heart goes out to you. May you be given every comfort and true help through this trial. While we might judge certain solutions as morally correct or incorrect, I hope you know that no one here is in any position to judge you.

 

[heilotes]

Well, thanks for the replies, but I kind of feel like I should clarify a few things.

For me, at least, I don’t think the genital surgery is going to make me happy. What will make me happy is assuming the societal role of a woman and taking on that gender role as a way to be more true to myself.

And as for the suicidal thoughts, I get them when I don’t really see much of a future for me where I can be happy. Most of the time I look forward to the future and the life I will lead and working towards that. For me, the idea of living as a male well into the future is not a happy existence. I think I might be able to make due if that is what it comes down to, but its not something I want. The hormones and other various surgeries are just a means of sort of fitting into society a little bit better than I can if I retain most of my male secondary sex characteristics. Vaginaplasty doesn’t really fit into that category though and I’m not sure that I want it. So sex reassignment surgery is still optional at this point.

But as Kerry A touched on, it is really hard to gauge whether a surgery is appropriate. I mean people get their eyes laser corrected all the time. Couldn’t one say, “If God wanted that person to see perfectly, then He would have given them eyes that wouldn’t deteriorate like that.” Isn’t my pain and discomfort at the very least equal to that of someone who is blind or suffers some other physical impairment? If they are deserving of corrective surgery, then why shouldn’t I?

Then the wording of this struck me as mportant,

Catechism, item 2297:

“Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reason, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

What exactly does “therapeutic medical reason” mean? I’m in pain and anguish because my gender and sex do not match. So would it not be for a therapeutic medical reasons that I would persue the treatments available to ‘cure’ or treat my mental condition. There is no known method of changing my gender in my brain, so the only other option is change my sex. The sex change procedures are in fact the cure for my gender identity disorder. I mean, its not like I just decided I wanted a sex change because it might be fun. I have been diagnosed by a professional as having gender identity disorder, the treatment is the hormones and various surgeries. So wouldn’t this qualify under item 2297? It may not, I’m far from an expert on the Catechism so I understand I could be completely wrong, but to a pair of untrained eyes looking at the ruling and then comparing it with the situation I find myself in, I don’t see how the sex change procedures do not qualify as permitted. Unless one were to exclude gender identity disorder from the list of medical conditions. Which if that is the case, then it seems as illogical as excluding schizophrenia from the list of medical conditions.

 

[Tiziana]

It is possible that my post will be deleted, but I say this anyway:

Go search help in another forum. Better yet, contact other people like you.

I am sorry, but transgender people aren’t really God Pet (it is like teacher pet, but with God ).

The choice you face is between a life of pain and self-denial and a possible (depends on how much you believe it, it is not on me to tell you) eternity in Hell.

Huzzah for God.

I feel for you, sister

If you want sound scientific advice, this is not the place. Contact me if you want some more information about that.

As I said, you have a very though choice in front of you.

 

[Tiziana]

I feel for you, Sister

Thogh choice. A life of pain and self denial or an eternity in Hell.

 

[lauraabarlow]

I am also a mother of a transgender son-I first thought that it was a choice yet after going to a transgender conference and learning about how with some folks, the brain was supposed to be one gender yet the body didn’t develop into that gender, hence-the feeling of being trapped in the opposite gender body. It took me some time to love my child for who he is, no matter what. This one priest/friend convinced me to look past the transgender issue and see the person he is, so I did. looking back at his childhood, the signs were there all along of his identity as a boy. He is currently 18 working on getting his life in order, and does attend mass and loves Jesus. Like my friend said (a priest friend)-the transgender situation would be the last he’d be worried about. He would be more concerned with his mental well-being and his education. He is in a support group for transgender individuals and I love my child very much. God loves him, too-his heart is in the right place with his faith. Your mom will eventually come around-I did. Trust me-I did.

Your mother is freaking out because she thinks it is her fault you’ve turned out this way, a very similar thing happens to fathers if their son come out as gay. As a result of original sin all sorts of things go wrong such as hormonal mess ups. In the womb the body receives two major hormonal doses, one determines sex of the body and one determines “brain sex”. As the baseline is female and it is androgens that change it towards male it appears there was simply a mishap with the hormones and you didn’t receive enough androgens to properly masculinise your brain causing an already feminine outlook. By unknowingly encouraging your thoughts in a female way you shifted further that way. This is neither a fault of you nor your parents and at 27 there is very little that can be done to make yourself more male. Is mutilating your body the proper way to deal with this? While taking hormones and surgery might make your body more in sync with your feelings you will shift yourself further way from your being. We all have crosses to bear and some have heavier crosses to bear than others.

PS God loves you no matter what.

 

[trials]

Praying for you OP.

OK, you keep using phrases like “I will be happy if…”, as in, your pursuit of some kind of happiness or inner peace, in your mind, is entirely dependent on you living as a woman. However, there are clearly other issues at play, unfortunately happiness is not so simply achieved.

I don’t have experience of your issues of course, no one does, but from my experience of having complex and deep rooted issues in my childhood that affect me to this day, I can say that I had a similar belief that if things could only be different, I would surely find happiness. It wasn’t true and it isn’t true. Therapy didn’t help either. The wound that was there is there permanently.

What I can say though is that my only cure and true healing came from developing a deeper prayer life. Having tried many avenues to reach this place of peace and fulfilment, even with my personal wounds and emotional baggage, Jesus was the only one that could bring me peace.

That would be my advice to you - get closer to Christ through prayer, then ask the Holy Spirit to guide all your life decisions. And though difficult, you will need to put aside your will for God’s will - but then you will discover that ‘in His will is our peace’. Really and truly. Begin to devote more time each day to prayer and your answer to all of your problems will be there. Yes, my answer is totally boring and unappealing, but I promise it will give you the strength and the guidance you are seeking, and lead you to the “green pastures” you are seeking.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Praying for you OP.

OK, you keep using phrases like “I will be happy if…”, as in, your pursuit of some kind of happiness or inner peace, in your mind, is entirely dependent on you living as a woman. However, there are clearly other issues at play, unfortunately happiness is not so simply achieved.

I don’t have experience of your issues of course, no one does, but from my experience of having complex and deep rooted issues in my childhood that affect me to this day, I can say that I had a similar belief that if things could only be different, I would surely find happiness. It wasn’t true and it isn’t true. Therapy didn’t help either. The wound that was there is there permanently.

What I can say though is that my only cure and true healing came from developing a deeper prayer life. Having tried many avenues to reach this place of peace and fulfilment, even with my personal wounds and emotional baggage, Jesus was the only one that could bring me peace.

That would be my advice to you - get closer to Christ through prayer, then ask the Holy Spirit to guide all your life decisions. And though difficult, you will need to put aside your will for God’s will - but then you will discover that ‘in His will is our peace’. Really and truly. Begin to devote more time each day to prayer and your answer to all of your problems will be there. Yes, my answer is totally boring and unappealing, but I promise it will give you the strength and the guidance you are seeking, and lead you to the “green pastures” you are seeking.

Your answer is far from boring and unappealing! It is the RIGHT answer!

:clapping:

 

[EasterJoy]

Then the wording of this struck me as important,

Catechism, item 2297:

“Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reason, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.”

What exactly does “therapeutic medical reason” mean? I’m in pain and anguish because my gender and sex do not match. So would it not be for a therapeutic medical reasons that I would persue the treatments available to ‘cure’ or treat my mental condition. There is no known method of changing my gender in my brain, so the only other option is change my sex. The sex change procedures are in fact the cure for my gender identity disorder. I mean, its not like I just decided I wanted a sex change because it might be fun. I have been diagnosed by a professional as having gender identity disorder, the treatment is the hormones and various surgeries. So wouldn’t this qualify under item 2297? It may not, I’m far from an expert on the Catechism so I understand I could be completely wrong, but to a pair of untrained eyes looking at the ruling and then comparing it with the situation I find myself in, I don’t see how the sex change procedures do not qualify as permitted. Unless one were to exclude gender identity disorder from the list of medical conditions. Which if that is the case, then it seems as illogical as excluding schizophrenia from the list of medical conditions.

“Therapeutic medical reason” means that a doctor does not have to preserve your reproductive organs any more than a doctor would have to preserve other organs or body parts that might become diseased and pose a serious threat to your overall health.

If a person’s exterior physical appearance were to put them into a severe inner turmoil, one that could only be relieved by surgical removal or alteration of a body part, then according to the source I posted, officials at the Vatican have allowed that theoretically the surgery could be done to provide the patient with relief. The surgery would only remove or alter the body part that was causing a severe psychological (or physical) reaction, providing relief that could not be provided in a different way. The treatment, whether surgical or pharmaceutical, would not change the person’s gender or grant the person permission to pretend a different gender. The Church, for instance, will not allow the gender on a person’s baptismal certificate to be altered after the fact unless the original information about natural gender had been falsified.

I’m concerned about the genesis of your discomfort. It sounds as if originally it was being denied the roles and activities that girls were allowed that was your greatest source of unhappiness; that is, you were unhappy because you were forced into the exterior trappings of boyhood, and meanwhile you coveted the exterior trappings of girlhood. For instance, your reaction at finding you were growing dark hairs: We women get heavy hair under our armpits and on our legs and pubic area, too. If you had been born a girl, this would still have happened to you. So you sound as if you have a fantasy person you’d like to be, a person who would not have ever grown hair on her legs. That is a fantasy person. If you had a fraternal twin sister, when you were getting hair on your legs, she undoubtedly would have had the same thing to contend with. She would not have taken hair as evidence that she was becoming a man.

As an example: anorexia and bulima are disorders of body image. That doesn’t mean that people with those disorders really have the right picture in their mind of what their “perfect” body looks like. They are not trying to starve themselves to death, they are not suicidal, nor are they friviolously risking their lives in the pursuit of fashion, but their view of themselves is nevertheless distorted. Even if getting to a weight that made them feel happy wouldn’t kill them, that doesn’t make that their “true” body. It is, rather, the body that their mind is willing to accept. There is a big difference.

Bluntly speaking, whether you are allowed to take tea in a lace blouse instead of pretending an interest in contact sports is a matter of fashion. John Adams got to take tea in a lace blouse and velvet pants, and he was not forced to play football. He was considered one of the great men of his time. Whatever real organic problems lie behind your suffering, they were undoubtedly magnified many times over by the prevailing sentiments about what a boy is that you had to grow up with. This does not mean that your parents caused your problem. Far from it. As far as I know, there has been no connection made between parental behaviors and transgender issues. Rather, you were dealt a difficult hand to play on more than one front.

Your view of yourself is distorted, and you have not been able, for whatever reason, to accept what you are in reality: a male. It does not appear to have been from the lack of trying, bless your soul. Still, it is like any other mental condition in which you have an interior concept that doesn’t match the exterior reality. Making yourself look more like your imagine yourself could be therapeutic, but it won’t change fantasy into reality. It might make it easier for you to ignore the reality, but it won’t make you anything other than what you are.

You are a man who has had an enduring fantasy since childhood in which you wish you were female. Some men have that issue, and it does cause a lot of suffering. I wish there were support groups for men who have that problem, but unfortunately most are forced to either pretend they have no problem or else to pretend that they can actually become women. None (or few) or us here are psychologists, and even psychologists are not at all sure how to treat this difficult problem, save to indulge the fantasy. I hope you will find something that will allow you to find contentment while being true to your actual gender, but mostly I hope you always find that, even among those who know all about your problem, you always feel deeply loved and profoundly valuable, no matter what circumstances you find yourself in. That is the main thing.

Remember the most famous part of the Serenity Prayer? “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference”? That is the main thing. The Church teaches, however, that anyone who tells you that by courage you can go from being a female to being a male is lying to you. It is not possible. By that fact, the Church would encourage you to try to find the serenity to accept that you are male and can be a fruitful servant of God as a male. No easy task, but that is your task. You deserve every compassion as you try to do that.

Back to your original question: Tell your mom not to beat herself up–this trial is not brought on because of upbringing, and even if it did, what is done cannot be undone!–to pray for you, and to resolve that you will both accept each other where you are each day, no matter what happens. Let God take care of tomorrow. I think that if she does that, it will help you both. Whatever you decide to do, being able to support each other will be very important.

 

[Viviphilia]

The hormones and other various surgeries are just a means of sort of fitting into society a little bit better than I can if I retain most of my male secondary sex characteristics.

Hormone therapy could be more important than you realize. If your brain really did remain feminized during your development, then it could be that your brain demands estrogen, and doesn’t function properly with an overload of testosterone. Many trans women report relief from anxiety and depression after starting hormone therapy. Gender dysphoria could be explained by an estrogen deficiency or testosterone overdose. There isn’t enough science on the topic to know for sure, but that hypothesis does explain the ubiquitous reports of improvement of symptoms from hormone therapy.

Vaginaplasty doesn’t really fit into that category though and I’m not sure that I want it. So sex reassignment surgery is still optional at this point.

Not all trans people feel body dysphoria regarding their genitals. Some advice I’ve heard is that if you don’t need the surgery, don’t get it. However, there is a common theme among transsexuals of dysphoria growing worse over time if left inadequately treated. It doesn’t always happen, but it is a possible outcome that you should consider.

What exactly does “therapeutic medical reason” mean? I’m in pain and anguish because my gender and sex do not match. So would it not be for a therapeutic medical reasons that I would persue the treatments available to ‘cure’ or treat my mental condition. There is no known method of changing my gender in my brain, so the only other option is change my sex.** The sex change procedures are in fact the cure for my gender identity disorder.** I mean, its not like I just decided I wanted a sex change because it might be fun. I have been diagnosed by a professional as having gender identity disorder, the treatment is the hormones and various surgeries. So wouldn’t this qualify under item 2297? It may not, I’m far from an expert on the Catechism so I understand I could be completely wrong, but to a pair of untrained eyes looking at the ruling and then comparing it with the situation I find myself in, I don’t see how the sex change procedures do not qualify as permitted. Unless one were to exclude gender identity disorder from the list of medical conditions. Which if that is the case, then it seems as illogical as excluding schizophrenia from the list of medical conditions.

Hormone therapy and sex corrective surgeries are as valid therapies for intersex as they are for intergender (transsexual) conditions. The problem is not with the science, but rather the politics.

Unfortunately, the Vatican is being guided on this issue by a person who has a history of invalidating transgender people. There are many criticisms of Paul McHugh available online. It is unfortunate that the Vatican continues to listen to his poor understanding of transsexuality.

 

[EasterJoy]

Hormone therapy could be more important than you realize. If your brain really did remain feminized during your development, then it could be that your brain demands estrogen, and doesn’t function properly with an overload of testosterone. Many trans women report relief from anxiety and depression after starting hormone therapy. Gender dysphoria could be explained by an estrogen deficiency or testosterone overdose. There isn’t enough science on the topic to know for sure, but that hypothesis does explain the ubiquitous reports of improvement of symptoms from hormone therapy.

Not all trans people feel body dysphoria regarding their genitals. Some advice I’ve heard is that if you don’t need the surgery, don’t get it. However, there is a common theme among transsexuals of dysphoria growing worse over time if left inadequately treated. It doesn’t always happen, but it is a possible outcome that you should consider.

Hormone therapy and sex corrective surgeries are as valid therapies for intersex as they are for intergender (transsexual) conditions. The problem is not with the science, but rather the politics.

Unfortunately, the Vatican is being guided on this issue by a person who has a history of invalidating transgender people. There are many criticisms of Paul McHugh available online. It is unfortunate that the Vatican continues to listen to his poor understanding of transsexuality.

The Church does not say it is forbidden to relieve psychological symptoms through medication or surgery. The Church has not forbidden this treatment outright–it could be morally permissible in extreme conditions. The Church only teaches the truth, which is that hormone treatment and surgery do not accomplish a gender change. The person remains their natural gender. The idea that the truth is otherwise is what is politics.

 

[StevenFrancis]

Ok, because I’m such a blabber mouth I’m going to have to do this in two posts:

I guess I’ll just start off by explaining my situation in life and the problems it is causing at home with my parents.

I am a 27 year old transgendered person, I was born male and believe my inner being to be more oriented as being female or womanly. So I hve been taking steps to align my body with the gender in my mind. This was never a decision I made in the past,I recall as child feeling that I wished I was a girl because girls had the life I wanted for myself. But I wouldn’t say it was particularly strong at this point, more like a nagging feeling and discomfort with having a penis and being expected to uphold the ideals of boyhood. I suspect at this point I most tucked my feelings away as my androgynous child body allowed me to not have any strong objection outside of that nagging feeling in the back of my mind. But then my body changed around 10-12 and I recall my first dark black body hair and discovering it in the bathroom at the library. I was so repulsed that my body was becoming more masculine and I pruned that hair only to find it multiplied very quickly after doing so. Before I knew it my body was changing into an adolescent man’s body. My nagging feelings compounded as these changes took place. While its normal to be curious about girls at this point in life, I found myself more interested in their lives and I started to emulate their behaviors and customs whenever I had a private moment at home. I’d dress in my mom’s clothes and pretend I was having female guests over for dinner and chat. I’d re-enact the motions and actions I’d observed women doing in my life. Before long I was more or less living my private life alone just going through the everyday motions (hanging out online, reading, doing homework, ect.) but pretending I was female. Often times I would dress the part and fantasize about how things might be different if I were born female, I wondered about my relationships with my friends and how they would be different if I were a young woman. I wondered about the boys I would date in high school and eventually college. By the time I went to college I found my prayers to be miraculously transformed over night by divine power into a woman had not come true.

I can’t even get into the ball park of understanding what this all must feel like. I know that the crosses we must bear vary, and there’s no real earthly explanation. While I have compassion and I will happily pray for you, I wouldn’t expect to find a Church doctrine which would support an individual changing the physical sexuality one is born to. I would expect there is a greater good that is to be derived from bearing the struggle. May God bless and keep you in your journey. May he lift you up, and help you to understand that benefit of remaining as you are, and perhaps helping others in your same situation to find strength in our Lord, rather than giving in to the temptation to alter the realities of natural physical birth gender.