Trasngender vs. Transvestite

[manualman]

So does that mean you think transvestism and transsexualism are perversions or what? You havent gotten down to brass tacks yet.

That’s because I’m nowhere near qualified to do so. My point is that there is suffering in the world that we cannot explain away. Those with either a physical or spiritual gender disorder have a burden to bear that cannot be hand - waved away. But neither can they simply do what feels right to them (since that’s ALWAYS to road to ruin). What a person FEELS can never be a perversion. Disordered inclination, yes. But temptations themselves are not sins. What a person DOES about his feelings can be perverted.

In the past, Zoe has linked to a variety of cases (including her own) where people have had to look very hard at the biological science to figure out the actual gender of a person. She’s clearly made a determined effort to chase facts, not emotions and arbitrary opinions.

I’m less convinced that brain wave patterns are a reliable tool of determination, but admit no personal competence in the matter. I find myself highly suspicious of statistics like 1-2% of humans being transgendered and I DO wonder how much of that is politicized monkey-wrenching. Does the fact that I had no interest in football and DID enjoy music and theater make ME transgendered yet? I keep expecting the claim. I’m also not persuaded that you can divorce gender and sexuality (if that is even what is being claimed). The two are parts of a whole, even in celibate persons.

So what AM I saying? If I experienced these problems, I would probably correspond to someone I trusted for help. I’d likely start with Fr. Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center. He’s not personally the guy for treatment, but he’s who I would trust to help me FIND help that is both qualified and faithful first to my catholic beliefs. This IS muddled stuff and the science is so raw and politicized that no few lay persons (in both the scientific and religious sense!) can decipher it without help.

I do find it plausible (as in one of the Zoe links) that a misdiagnosis can be made at birth due to a physical defect. If a baby is born with a defect that conceals the penis and testes internally, that baby is still a boy even if the midwife wrote “girl” on the paperwork. To me, this isn’t transgenderism, its a misdiagnosis (not necessarily due to malpractice)!

On the other hand, I have a hard time conceiving of how it can be justified for a male with functional reproductive organs (fathering a child even?) to justify the claim of female gender. Does not compute. I would think such a person needs to accept the burden of celibacy and live as the gender his physical biology most clearly indicates. But this is my lay opinion, so it doesn’t matter a whit. Anyone IN such a situation needs help that is likely hard to find. (see above)

 

[aspawloski4th]

That’s because I’m nowhere near qualified to do so. My point is that there is suffering in the world that we cannot explain away. Those with either a physical or spiritual gender disorder have a burden to bear that cannot be hand - waved away. But neither can they simply do what feels right to them (since that’s ALWAYS to road to ruin). What a person FEELS can never be a perversion. Disordered inclination, yes. But temptations themselves are not sins. What a person DOES about his feelings can be perverted.

In the past, Zoe has linked to a variety of cases (including her own) where people have had to look very hard at the biological science to figure out the actual gender of a person. She’s clearly made a determined effort to chase facts, not emotions and arbitrary opinions.

I’m less convinced that brain wave patterns are a reliable tool of determination, but admit no personal competence in the matter. I find myself highly suspicious of statistics like 1-2% of humans being transgendered and I DO wonder how much of that is politicized monkey-wrenching. Does the fact that I had no interest in football and DID enjoy music and theater make ME transgendered yet? I keep expecting the claim. I’m also not persuaded that you can divorce gender and sexuality (if that is even what is being claimed). The two are parts of a whole, even in celibate persons.

So what AM I saying? If I experienced these problems, I would probably correspond to someone I trusted for help. I’d likely start with Fr. Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center. He’s not personally the guy for treatment, but he’s who I would trust to help me FIND help that is both qualified and faithful first to my catholic beliefs. This IS muddled stuff and the science is so raw and politicized that no few lay persons (in both the scientific and religious sense!) can decipher it without help.

I do find it plausible (as in one of the Zoe links) that a misdiagnosis can be made at birth due to a physical defect. If a baby is born with a defect that conceals the penis and testes internally, that baby is still a boy even if the midwife wrote “girl” on the paperwork. To me, this isn’t transgenderism, its a misdiagnosis (not necessarily due to malpractice)!

On the other hand, I have a hard time conceiving of how it can be justified for a male with functional reproductive organs (fathering a child even?) to justify the claim of female gender. Does not compute. I would think such a person needs to accept the burden of celibacy and live as the gender his physical biology most clearly indicates. But this is my lay opinion, so it doesn’t matter a whit. Anyone IN such a situation needs help that is likely hard to find. (see above)

Now you have. You believe(while not whole heartedly) that physical sex at birth, while possible to missassign is the final determination of one’s gender. Thats what I wanted to know, is where you and in respect to that. After more than a thrid of a century of dealing with this subject myself, I think differently.

 

[manualman]

Thankfully for you, ignorance of a subject like sex is not something one needs to appologise for False accusations of intellectual dishonesty probably are though. I’ve appreciated your posts here.

Somebody made the claim that opposition to transexual behavior (cross dressing, etc) is the source of violence against these people (I don’t remember who as it was many posts earlier). I cited another case (alcoholism) where there is a CLEAR cultural disapproval of the behavior and yet no corresponding trend of violence against those who exhibit the behavior (alcoholics). I suppose you are right, it could be an honest mistake in reasoning, not intellectual dishonesty. But the prevalence of the argument today suggests otherwise (after all, nobody targets cheating husbands, car salesmen, or BP executives for violence. Aren’t they examples of groups whom it is socially respectable to frown on based on their behavior?). The argument doesn’t fit the broader facts.

It isn’t the disapproval that causes the violence. The violence comes from the human temptation towards scapegoating others to whom we cannot relate. Same reason lefties have such an exaggerated hatred of George Bush and righties get queasy at the sight of Obama. Disagreement doesn’t breed hatred, lack of human connection does.

 

[manualman]

Now you have. You believe(while not whole heartedly) that physical sex at birth, while possible to missassign is the final determination of one’s gender. Thats what I wanted to know, is where you and in respect to that. After more than a thrid of a century of dealing with this subject myself, I think differently.

From this I take it that you are of the opinion that someone can have all the physical and functioning male organs and still be female in the soul? I must admit to being rather skeptical of this. At that point things seem far too subjective and subject to feelings. Feelings and emotions are poor foundations to build one’s identity on, don’t you think? Such a person has my sincere sympathy, but I could not support that person in a desire to wear a dress and use women’s bathrooms. Sorry, but no. Even if there are chromosomal inconsistancies, if the hard ware is all there and functional the software needs to adapt somehow. Not to say he needs to date and marry, but he’s got to wear pants and avoid high heels. Strictly my opinion not based explicitly on any catholic reference here, mind you. I’ve never had need to research it.

 

[aspawloski4th]

From this I take it that you are of the opinion that someone can have all the physical and functioning male organs and still be female in the soul? I must admit to being rather skeptical of this. At that point things seem far too subjective and subject to feelings. Feelings and emotions are poor foundations to build one’s identity on, don’t you think? Such a person has my sincere sympathy, but I could not support that person in a desire to wear a dress and use women’s bathrooms. Sorry, but no. Even if there are chromosomal inconsistancies, if the hard ware is all there and functional the software needs to adapt somehow. Not to say he needs to date and marry, but he’s got to wear pants and avoid high heels. Strictly my opinion not based explicitly on any catholic reference here, mind you. I’ve never had need to research it.

I’m officially diagnosed transsexual myself. I can say it’s not mere feeling , but something more intrinsic and deeper. The word feeling is commonly used because finding a word to express it at least in the English language is tough. But it’s something I knew back in kindegarden before I hadd any concept of sexuality.

 

[manualman]

I’m officially diagnosed transsexual myself. I can say it’s not mere feeling , but something more intrinsic and deeper. The word feeling is commonly used because finding a word to express it at least in the English language is tough. But it’s something I knew back in kindegarden before I hadd any concept of sexuality.

If it’s too private, I apologize and withdraw the question. But I imagine you’ve had quite a lot of struggles and had to address excruiating decisions. How did you do so and reconcile it with your catholic faith? I looked briefly at your profile and see references to wife and kids. Again, I don’t mean to pry, but how did this come to be?

 

[aspawloski4th]

If it’s too private, I apologize and withdraw the question. But I imagine you’ve had quite a lot of struggles and had to address excruiating decisions. How did you do so and reconcile it with your catholic faith? I looked briefly at your profile and see references to wife and kids. Again, I don’t mean to pry, but how did this come to be?

Wife, no kids. Wife is disabled partially and otherwise in poor health. I’ll pm my story to you later today.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

In the past, Zoe has linked to a variety of cases (including her own) where people have had to look very hard at the biological science to figure out the actual gender of a person. She’s clearly made a determined effort to chase facts, not emotions and arbitrary opinions.

That has been my intent, yes. I may not always have succeeded, being human and all. (Well, most people think I’m human - there have been contrary opinions expressed, and not without evidence, just not convincing evidence).

I find myself highly suspicious of statistics like 1-2% of humans being transgendered and I DO wonder how much of that is politicized monkey-wrenching.

According to the studies quoted in Anne Faust-Stirling’s book “Sexing the Body”, the definitive text on the subject, 1.7% of the population have bodies that do not conform to the Platonic Ideal of male and female. Criticisms of this have centered on the definition of the word “Intersex” rather than the data. For example, Sax criticised the figure as he didn’t consider people having 47,XXY chromosomes rather than the usual 46,XX (female) or 46,XY (male) to be Intersexed, unless they also had blatant physical anomalies too.

Professor Lynn Conway’s figures for Transsexuality of 1 in 500 are at ai.eecs.umich.edu/people/conway/TS/TSprevalence.html#Article

You can check her reasoning, and her figures, for yourself. Faith is not required. We have a definite minimum number though from some uncontroversial statistics:

We can do a quick sanity check of these results by calculating postop prevalence in a totally different way. Here we will calculating is “incrementally”. We can do this by dividing the ongoing incidence of SRS each year by the incidence of male births in the U.S. each year. Since there are now about 1500 to 2000 SRS’s per year and about 2,000,000 male births each year in the U.S, we find an incremental value for prevalence of between 1500/2,000,000 = 1:1333 and 2000/2,000,000 = 1:1000.

The “official figure” of 1:30,000 is wildly inaccurate, and provably so -as well as being inconsistent with all studies done in many countries over the last 45 years (the date this figure was initially estimated, based on a single Swedish study).

I’d likely start with Fr. Tad Pacholczyk of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.

Having seen his opinions… best not for me to comment. Since Dr Rekers views, which he based his opinions on, have now been comprehensively debunked, I hope he’s re-thinking the issue.

This IS muddled stuff and the science is so raw and politicized that no few lay persons (in both the scientific and religious sense!) can decipher it without help.

There I agree, and think any reasonable person would too. I’ll leave aside the Theology - an area I have only a smattering of knowledge in (my partner scored a High Distinction in the subject at the Australian Catholic University) - because just the science is complicated enough.

On the other hand, I have a hard time conceiving of how it can be justified for a male with functional reproductive organs (fathering a child even?) to justify the claim of female gender. Does not compute.

Oh, I agree! I had a hard time too.

I’m the biological father of my child, remember? I “knew” that I was female at age 10. But I’d also contributed gametes extracted from partly and temporarily functional testes adequate (on the 14th attempt) to father a child. It was a long shot - longer than we knew, as I’d been mis-diagnosed as an intersexed male at the time - but it was the only way I could have a baby.

So when the changes happened, the obvious, simple answer was that I’d gone bonkers. I assumed that I was delusional, halucinating, and presented myself for treatment on that basis. Except… it turned out not to be the case. I took a lot of convincing of that. Fortunately my medical team understood my disorientation, and quietly e-mailed the raw data from the medical tests to me, to let me draw my own conclusions. So when they told me that the least inaccurate diagnosis was “severe androgenisation of a non-pregnant woman”, I had to agree.

It was very difficult for someone brought up to distrust one’s own feelings, to be self-critical and always assume that what one desperately desires to be true is almost certainly false, well it’s very difficult to accept that one’s wishes have come true.

If I hadn’t so desperately wanted this, if it was something horrible, I would have accepted it as true straight away. The Universe owes me no favours, and it’s miraculous that such things as “Love” and “Compassion” can exist in it. Miraculous and Wonderful.

I felt duty bound though to make it quite clear to those on my medical team who were aghast that something so awful could happen to a man, that rather than an affliction, this was a miraculous blessing to me. Instead of becoming afflicted with transsexuality, as they were assuming, I was being released from it. No sympathies or condolences were needed, nor were they appropriate. This time it was they who took some convincing…:ehh:



I still wonder why me though. That still seems … wrong… when so many more deserving than I suffer. Anyway, that’s why I’m here. To try to help them, to add a bit of balance to an unjust situation. How could I not?