Transpecies, transgender

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Ana_v

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By “transgender”, I am not referring to persons born with ambiguous sexual organs.

I am referring to people with an objectively, phenotypically, recognizable gender at birth – even prior to birth at that – (not to mention that their gender is genetically indicated) and who later on rejected their gender and altered their bodies so as to conform to the physical appearance of their opposite gender.

Unfortunately, we live in a society in which this is being normalized. And children are being born alongside this normalization. As such, people in future generations will no longer share the perspective that this is “not normal” . (Because normality is determined by frequency of occurrence). Even if they morally oppose this phenomenon, they will still not be able to bring themselves to see this as “not normal”. In other words, the shock of it (if it exists at all) will not hit them as drastically as it does to those individuals who lived in a time in which this kind of a thing was unfathomable or, even if entertained as a hypothetical, would rightly be understood as an outrageous medical procedure (and more outrageous or absurd, the social acceptance/celebration of such a procedure).

Imagine the following:

A man is up on a stage, before a secular, pro-sexual revolution audience. This man regards himself as a “transgendered” person, because he has been through elective surgery and hormone therapy to tranform his appearance and bodily experience in to that of a woman’s. He tells the audience about how he feels very fulfilled being a “woman”, is indebted to those who supported him in being “true” to himself, and who understand that gender is a “personal decision” that is determined by one’s “interior sense of identity”. At the end of his presentation, he is applauded.

Elsewhere, also before the same type of audience, I go up on stage and introduce myself as “transpecies”. I talk about how I underwent a wonderful transformation from the “culturally imposed” identity of “human”, to my “true” identity of jaguar. I received full body tattoos that mimic the spotted pattern on jaguar fur, have surgically attached whiskers, and received some dental impants whose design resembles the canine teeth of jaguars. I also prefer to walk on all fours. I hope that one day, society will support who I really am (jaguar), instead of who they
would rather me be (human).

Would I receive an applause?

I realize that secular critics would probably consider my example to be extreme, and would not take it seriously. But, the logic is the same behind both.
 
I’m not so sure your ‘jaguar’ example is that outlandish. I have seen examples of people who have done just that - tattoos, implants, plastic surgery, etc. Mostly done outside normal medical safeguards and apparently (to my eyes) done by people with unhealthy mental states.

My personal impression is that such a thing is self-mutilation and, were a person to do so deliberately and wilfully, I think it would be a sin, however I’m pretty certain that anyone doing such a thing is labouring under some form of pathology and as a result their degree of liability is lessened.

For the purposes of balance I should say that I detest tattoos in any form, so I may or may not have an over-conservative viewpoint.
 
People around here will probably jump on me and tell me that I shouldn’t be watching this, but…

South Park actually touched on this same issue. I don’t really remember the whole episode, but I think the school teacher was getting sex-change surgery, and somewhere along the line this gave Kyle’s (?) dad the idea that he was meant to be a dolphin, so he underwent surgery to transform his body into that of a dolphin. This was pretty much making fun of people who feel that they are born in the wrong body.

I know South Park is irreverent and all-around offensive to everybody, but no one can deny that it is very relevant.
 
While I believe that some people truly believe they are for example “A man trapped in a womans body” or vice versa, I don’t believe in these operations. I think it goes against God and simply human anatomy and physiology. If a man was meant to be a woman, well, he’d have woman’s parts and the estrogen to sustain those parts. Once you start having surgeries and injecting hormones, it’s just repugnant to me.

If some guy wants to wear dresses and paint his nails, oh heck, do what you want if it’s not in my house, but don’t go and alter what you actually are.

To me, the sad thing is that with all the medical research dollars that go into making a woman into a man, those dollars could be finding a cure for childhood cancers, diabetes, and a plethora of other truly devastating conditions. That is a sin.
 
I realize that secular critics would probably consider my example to be extreme, and would not take it seriously. But, the logic is the same behind both.
While I understand that your intent is for the logic to be the same, it really isn’t. Scientifically, there are reasonable hypotheses as to why transsexualism exists. That isn’t the case for a human being who claims to be a jaguar.

And at a practical level, it fails. As another person has pointed out, there are individuals who have altered their appearance, at least their head, to make it appear more feline. However, no individual has actually lived 24/7 as a jaguar (eschewing all human behaviors) for months and years on end.
 
OP, that’s just the problem. You probably would receive applause from some corner. When society insists there are no boundaries, then indeed there are NO boundaries. The line in the sand gets moved further and further back, until there is no line. And society ends up with the very scenario you gave – you might as well change species as change genders, because nothing is ever wrong.

The more that society moves back the line in the sand, the more ridiculous it gets. And I am becoming more and more willing and able, in spite of their protests of homophobia and discrimination, to loudly and clearly state what my line is: marriage is one man/one woman; same sex marriage is wrong; practicing homosexual/bisexual/transvestite/transgender is wrong.
 
By “transgender”, I am not referring to persons born with ambiguous sexual organs.

I am referring to people with an objectively, phenotypically, recognizable gender at birth – even prior to birth at that – (not to mention that their gender is genetically indicated) and who later on rejected their gender and altered their bodies so as to conform to the physical appearance of their opposite gender.

Unfortunately, we live in a society in which this is being normalized. And children are being born alongside this normalization. As such, people in future generations will no longer share the perspective that this is “not normal” . (Because normality is determined by frequency of occurrence). Even if they morally oppose this phenomenon, they will still not be able to bring themselves to see this as “not normal”. In other words, the shock of it (if it exists at all) will not hit them as drastically as it does to those individuals who lived in a time in which this kind of a thing was unfathomable or, even if entertained as a hypothetical, would rightly be understood as an outrageous medical procedure (and more outrageous or absurd, the social acceptance/celebration of such a procedure).

Imagine the following:

A man is up on a stage, before a secular, pro-sexual revolution audience. This man regards himself as a “transgendered” person, because he has been through elective surgery and hormone therapy to tranform his appearance and bodily experience in to that of a woman’s. He tells the audience about how he feels very fulfilled being a “woman”, is indebted to those who supported him in being “true” to himself, and who understand that gender is a “personal decision” that is determined by one’s “interior sense of identity”. At the end of his presentation, he is applauded.

Elsewhere, also before the same type of audience, I go up on stage and introduce myself as “transpecies”. I talk about how I underwent a wonderful transformation from the “culturally imposed” identity of “human”, to my “true” identity of jaguar. I received full body tattoos that mimic the spotted pattern on jaguar fur, have surgically attached whiskers, and received some dental impants whose design resembles the canine teeth of jaguars. I also prefer to walk on all fours. I hope that one day, society will support who I really am (jaguar), instead of who they
would rather me be (human).

Would I receive an applause?

I realize that secular critics would probably consider my example to be extreme, and would not take it seriously. But, the logic is the same behind both.
There is a crucial difference here in that in the womb due to hormones mess up it is possible to have a male body and also have a brain that is so effeminate that it might as well be female or a female body with a brain that is so butch it might as well be male. The brain and the body are sexually differentiated at different times allowing this bizarreness to happen. These people shouldn’t be mocked, they need love, think of how painful for there to be such a disconnect between mind and body, to look at yourself in the mirror and be unable to see you. Condoning the operations wont help them, they need people to help them bear their cross. I find your “joke” (or at least I hope that’s what it is) tasteless, very unfunny and rather crass.
 
And at a practical level, it fails. As another person has pointed out, there are individuals who have altered their appearance, at least their head, to make it appear more feline. However, no individual has actually lived 24/7 as a jaguar (eschewing all human behaviors) for months and years on end.
Yes, unless a person determines to cut himself off from civilization and live in the wild within a geographical location in which jaguars reside, he is not making too impressive an effort to assume the role of a jaguar. And in the event that such a person does permanently establish himself in the wild, he indeed cannot wholly discard his humanity in terms of tendencies, behaviors, and needs.

Yet the parallel does exist with respect to the variable of ‘desire to be that which one is not’, and push boundries, as another commenter noted. A person’s gender is a biological fact, as is the species to which one belongs. But there is a fascination in today’s world, to treat gender as malleable.
 
Condoning the operations wont help them, they need people to help them bear their cross. I find your “joke” (or at least I hope that’s what it is) tasteless, very unfunny and rather crass.
(emphasis mine)

The secularist would ask you, why not? (With regards to the bold).

If the disconnect is causing them suffering, and they believe their minds’ gender assessment, is not in balance with their bodies’ characteristics, why not support a procedure that they’ve deciced will alleviate their suffering and “put into proper balance” the mind-body tension?

My scenario was not intended to be a “joke” for an exchange of laughters (anymore than persons who oppose civil gay marriage, are “joking” when they recourse to warnings about further relaxations of sexual morality, e.g. “inter-generational intimacy” a.k.a. pedophilic relationships). It was also not intended to be obnoxious or hurt feelings.

Sometimes it takes an analogy to get a point across. I say “unfortunately” because, of course, analogies aren’t perfect and because ideally, people would perceive a point without the aid of analogy.
 
But there is a fascination in today’s world, to treat gender as malleable.
I think we need to make a distinction between transgender and transsexual. They aren’t the same thing. Many transsexuals would agree that gender is not malleable.
 
By “transgender”, I am not referring to persons born with ambiguous sexual organs.

I am referring to people with an objectively, phenotypically, recognizable gender at birth – even prior to birth at that – (not to mention that their gender is genetically indicated) and who later on rejected their gender and altered their bodies so as to conform to the physical appearance of their opposite gender.

Unfortunately, we live in a society in which this is being normalized. And children are being born alongside this normalization. As such, people in future generations will no longer share the perspective that this is “not normal” . (Because normality is determined by frequency of occurrence). Even if they morally oppose this phenomenon, they will still not be able to bring themselves to see this as “not normal”. In other words, the shock of it (if it exists at all) will not hit them as drastically as it does to those individuals who lived in a time in which this kind of a thing was unfathomable or, even if entertained as a hypothetical, would rightly be understood as an outrageous medical procedure (and more outrageous or absurd, the social acceptance/celebration of such a procedure).

Imagine the following:

A man is up on a stage, before a secular, pro-sexual revolution audience. This man regards himself as a “transgendered” person, because he has been through elective surgery and hormone therapy to tranform his appearance and bodily experience in to that of a woman’s. He tells the audience about how he feels very fulfilled being a “woman”, is indebted to those who supported him in being “true” to himself, and who understand that gender is a “personal decision” that is determined by one’s “interior sense of identity”. At the end of his presentation, he is applauded.

Elsewhere, also before the same type of audience, I go up on stage and introduce myself as “transpecies”. I talk about how I underwent a wonderful transformation from the “culturally imposed” identity of “human”, to my “true” identity of jaguar. I received full body tattoos that mimic the spotted pattern on jaguar fur, have surgically attached whiskers, and received some dental impants whose design resembles the canine teeth of jaguars. I also prefer to walk on all fours. I hope that one day, society will support who I really am (jaguar), instead of who they
would rather me be (human).

Would I receive an applause?

I realize that secular critics would probably consider my example to be extreme, and would not take it seriously. But, the logic is the same behind both.
webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.religioustolerance.org/transsexu15.htm
 
(emphasis mine)

The secularist would ask you, why not? (With regards to the bold).

If the disconnect is causing them suffering, and they believe their minds’ gender assessment, is not in balance with their bodies’ characteristics, why not support a procedure that they’ve deciced will alleviate their suffering and “put into proper balance” the mind-body tension?

My scenario was not intended to be a “joke” for an exchange of laughters (anymore than persons who oppose civil gay marriage, are “joking” when they recourse to warnings about further relaxations of sexual morality, e.g. “inter-generational intimacy” a.k.a. pedophilic relationships). It was also not intended to be obnoxious or hurt feelings.

Sometimes it takes an analogy to get a point across. I say “unfortunately” because, of course, analogies aren’t perfect and because ideally, people would perceive a point without the aid of analogy.
John Hopkins University was a pioneer in sex change operations and has since discontinued it once they realized it rarely solves problems because most people aren’t actually that disjointed between sex and gender
 
Maybe this should go in a new thread, please forgive me. I had been thinking of this differently, more in terms of marriage. If we can have same-sex “marriage” accepted as normal, how about inter-species “marriage?” I love my cat, who is male, but the sex issue no longer matters. I’m sure he loves me too (as best a cat can) and I’m committed to care for him for his lifetime. Why should I not be able marry him? My wife may object, but by this time we will have already accepted multiple spouses.

Absurd? Perhaps. But once we start down the slope, how long before we totally lose our footing?
 
Maybe this should go in a new thread, please forgive me. I had been thinking of this differently, more in terms of marriage. If we can have same-sex “marriage” accepted as normal, how about inter-species “marriage?” I love my cat, who is male, but the sex issue no longer matters. I’m sure he loves me too (as best a cat can) and I’m committed to care for him for his lifetime. Why should I not be able marry him? My wife may object, but by this time we will have already accepted multiple spouses.

Absurd? Perhaps. But once we start down the slope, how long before we totally lose our footing?
animals are objects, you can’t marry an object, besides he can’t fill out the paper work
 
I realize that secular critics would probably consider my example to be extreme, and would not take it seriously. But, the logic is the same behind both.
No, not same logic. The jaguar thing is misleading because “jaguar” isn’t an option for human birth, while male and female are.

That being said, I think there ARE people who “identify” as animals, creatures from folklore, etc. I don’t know how many pursue body modifications though.
 
There certainly are people who either think they are mythological creatures,or who want to pretend there are. There are people who think they are vampires, get cosmetic dental surgery to add ‘fangs’, and even slurp up blood from cuts, as a sort of sexual fetish I think. One of my classmates from college had a creepy roommate who thought she was a vampire. Also, there is a whole subculture, the goth subculture, where people sort of try to follow the asthetics of the vampire myth, without actually thinking that they are one. I knew a lot of goths in college as well.

But, I think this sort of thing is a completely seperate phenomenon than medical gender ambiguity, which is really just a medical/chromosome abnormality. There really are people with the chromosomes of one gender, and the genitalia of another, or people who have XXY chromosomes, or other issues. Also, I believe in these cases, the gender that is assigned at birth may not be the one that it turns out is most expressed when the child reaches puberity, which would cause all sorts of problems, including the need to change gender identity. However Catholicism feels about gender bending in general, I would hope that all of you would feel nothing but compassion for people with these issues.
 
There really are people with the chromosomes of one gender, and the genitalia of another…
Right, there most definately are intersexed people, but I believe most people who “change sexes” are ordinary males or females, aside from the desire to change sex.

I assume most Catholics view it as disordered and feel compassion for the person, while not supporting the actions. But it’s a little tricky to p(name removed by moderator)oint the actual sin.

Is it still a mortal sin if someone knowingly becomes sterile/infertile as a side effect of the surgery, even if they view that side effect as unfortunate and undesirable?
 
Right, there most definately are intersexed people, but I believe most people who “change sexes” are ordinary males or females, aside from the desire to change sex.

I assume most Catholics view it as disordered and feel compassion for the person, while not supporting the actions.** But it’s a little tricky to p(name removed by moderator)oint the actual sin**.

Is it still a mortal sin if someone knowingly becomes sterile/infertile as a side effect of the surgery, even if they view that side effect as unfortunate and undesirable?
Didn’t you read the Church position in the link I gave earlier? Its a grave sin.
Here is the link again.

webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://www.religioustolerance.org/transsexu15.htm
 
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