Why Transgendered?

[HabemusFrancis]

I am here to discuss the transgendered community, that group of people who believe they are a man/woman trapped in a woman/mans body. My question is, where do they come from? What on earth would make one desire to have inalterable surgery?

If one is a faithful Catholic, one cannot believe they were just “born that way” or that God truly desires them to have those thoughts of being a different gender. I think it is a bit strange, and have never met one to be honest. I also get the sense that noone can genuinley change their gender, they just become a parody of the gender they are trying to become.

My older brother has told me that he believes it is trauma of some sort that causes it, and apparently that many transgendereds have borderline personality disorder. An interesting theory.

Any thoughts?

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

I am here to discuss the transgendered community, that group of people who believe they are a man/woman trapped in a woman/mans body. My question is, where do they come from? What on earth would make one desire to have inalterable surgery?

The whole “man/woman trapped in a woman/mans body” isn’t really accurate, mostly it’s just used to explain it in terms the average person could understand. It’s not really a desire for surgery, most experience massive improvement with HRT and transitioning socially which for many is enough though if given the opportunity even many of the relatively content ones would take it in a heartbeat.

If one is a faithful Catholic, one cannot believe they were just “born that way” or that God truly desires them to have those thoughts of being a different gender. I think it is a bit strange, and have never met one to be honest. I also get the sense that noone can genuinley change their gender, they just become a parody of the gender they are trying to become.

It really depends on the age, for those who transition young it is much more smooth and frequently within a couple years they perfectly pass.

My older brother has told me that he believes it is trauma of some sort that causes it, and apparently that many transgendereds have borderline personality disorder. An interesting theory.

Any thoughts?

Said BPD tends to improve massively or even go away after transitioning.

 

[Rin]

There is conclusive evidence that transgenderism is a neurobiological phenomenon - the brain (which has observable differences between genders) is differentiated differently from the reproductive system, causing incongruence between how the person naturally thinks, acts and feels, and how the person looks.

Most transgender individuals report having memories of gender dysphoria from they were as young as four to five years old. The condition worsens when puberty commences and sex hormones start being released - it is as torturous to a trans person as it would be to feed cross-sex hormones to someone who is not transgender.

The only treatment which has been proved to relieve the internal turmoil caused by this condition, is cross-sex hormones and in some (but fewer) cases surgery. It is not done for fun or just because you want it, but as a medical necessity. Hormones also work as a diagnostic tool - if you respond well to HRT psychologically, your brain can reasonably be assumed to be incongruent with the body, since as I said it is torturous to those who do not need it. Sex reassignment surgery is only allowed if the patient actually needs it to relieve dysphoria, and only after at least a year of hormone treatment and living full-time as your perceived gender.

As to what you said about being a faithful Catholic, I’m afraid you are completely wrong. Contrary to popular belief, there is no teaching about this, and therefore also no condemnation. The Church has as a matter of discipline stopped altering birth certificates after surgery (it happened for decades before that was decided, and those certificates were not changed back - and their marriages were not invalidated), but this is discipline, not teaching. It can (and in my opinion probably will) change in the future.

You are however right that one can not change one’s gender - this is Catholic teaching. But trans people are not trying to change their gender - the treatment is an affirmation of gender, not a change. Reparative therapy however aims to change the person’s gender - which is why it fails horribly.

Lastly, your stereotyping of transgender people is not in touch with reality - it is however common. The majority of transgender people look and act like any other person, and when you meet them, you won’t even know. Those who are fortunate enough to get puberty blockers early, are completely impossible to spot, since their bone structure won’t be affected by the wrong hormones. But even those who transition a later in life are often able to completely pass - people won’t know unless they’re told. For this reason, most people only associate trans people with those who don’t pass or perhaps are in the middle of their transition, and remain ignorant of the rest.

 

[Filia_Secunda]

Wow, Rin . . . I never knew that . . . any of it. Why has no Christian /ever/ mentioned this before? It’ll certainly save some awkwardness if I should ever meet a transgendered person.

Oh, wait, I should probably ask . . . what are your sources? And is there anything I can read on the history and reasons of the Church’s practice in this matter?

 

[Murmurs]

There is conclusive evidence that transgenderism is a neurobiological phenomenon - the brain (which has observable differences between genders) is differentiated differently from the reproductive system, causing incongruence between how the person naturally thinks, acts and feels, and how the person looks.

Most transgender individuals report having memories of gender dysphoria from they were as young as four to five years old. The condition worsens when puberty commences and sex hormones start being released - it is as torturous to a trans person as it would be to feed cross-sex hormones to someone who is not transgender.

The only treatment which has been proved to relieve the internal turmoil caused by this condition, is cross-sex hormones and in some (but fewer) cases surgery. It is not done for fun or just because you want it, but as a medical necessity. Hormones also work as a diagnostic tool - if you respond well to HRT psychologically, your brain can reasonably be assumed to be incongruent with the body, since as I said it is torturous to those who do not need it. Sex reassignment surgery is only allowed if the patient actually needs it to relieve dysphoria, and only after at least a year of hormone treatment and living full-time as your perceived gender.

As to what you said about being a faithful Catholic, I’m afraid you are completely wrong. Contrary to popular belief, there is no teaching about this, and therefore also no condemnation. The Church has as a matter of discipline stopped altering birth certificates after surgery (it happened for decades before that was decided, and those certificates were not changed back - and their marriages were not invalidated), but this is discipline, not teaching. It can (and in my opinion probably will) change in the future.

You are however right that one can not change one’s gender - this is Catholic teaching. But trans people are not trying to change their gender - the treatment is an affirmation of gender, not a change. Reparative therapy however aims to change the person’s gender - which is why it fails horribly.

Lastly, your stereotyping of transgender people is not in touch with reality - it is however common. The majority of transgender people look and act like any other person, and when you meet them, you won’t even know. Those who are fortunate enough to get puberty blockers early, are completely impossible to spot, since their bone structure won’t be affected by the wrong hormones. But even those who transition a later in life are often able to completely pass - people won’t know unless they’re told. For this reason, most people only associate trans people with those who don’t pass or perhaps are in the middle of their transition, and remain ignorant of the rest.

This is an outstandingly nuanced and thoughtful post. Thank you, Rin, for taking the time

 

[anonymous_in_fl]

To my understanding their is no “conclusive evidence” regarding the origins of transgender feelings/desire in a person. It may be some kind of mix or interplay between genetics, early life experiences, hormones, etc.

The jury is still out.

 

[Rin]

Wow, Rin . . . I never knew that . . . any of it. Why has no Christian /ever/ mentioned this before? It’ll certainly save some awkwardness if I should ever meet a transgendered person.

Oh, wait, I should probably ask . . . what are your sources? And is there anything I can read on the history and reasons of the Church’s practice in this matter?

The reason nobody has ever mentioned this to you before, is probably out of ignorance. This is a niche subject, a rare condition, and something very unfamiliar to most people. The fact that mass media generally have a sensationalist angle when reporting on something related to transgenderism, and their almost pubertal focus on genitals (why is it suddenly okay to ask a trans person about the state of their genitals? It’s not like they would ask random cis people intimate questions about their privates), doesn’t help. It just reinforces myths.

Additionally, given the Church stance on homosexual acts (which is, by the way, a completely different subject - trans people are straight, gay and asexual just like everyone else. The distribution is actually similar, except there’s a higher rate of asexuality), it is quite natural for most people to just assume that the Church condemns this, too. However, that would be wrong.

As for sources, there have been multiple threads lately where I and others have given them and discussed them in details. I would gladly look it up, but I am at the moment getting ready to attend a wedding, so I probably won’t get it done until past the weekend. The threads should be easy to find though, if you wish.

 

[Rin]

To my understanding their is no “conclusive evidence” regarding the origins of transgender feelings/desire in a person. It may be some kind of mix or interplay between genetics, early life experiences, hormones, etc.

The jury is still out.

The evidence is actually seen as conclusive by those who specialize in the subject. Transgenderism is, increasingly, called “brain intersex”.

However, people with a lack of understanding of the scientific method, also misunderstand the word “conclusive evidence”. It doesn’t mean that we know 100%. We never know with full certainty in science. It is logically impossible given the scientific method itself.

So yes, the jury is still out. The jury is always out in natural sciences - it is out on the theories of gravity and evolution, on relativity, on whether smoking causes cancer, and on whether transgenderism is neurobiological. But that doesn’t mean there is reason to believe it will change - it would take extraordinary evidence, because at this time, the claim that transgenderism is not neurobiological, is certainly extraordinary.

People will always abuse the uncertainty which is intrinsic to the scientific method to discredit even the most established of theories. I don’t really care - their opinions are irrelevant and generally based on ideology, not reason.

 

[Starrsmother]

The church teaches that we are not a spirit trapped in a body, but rather a combination of spirit and body together, created by God in HIS image and likeness as He so chose. It always interests me to note that when I grew up in the 60’s this was a non-problem but along with abortion, artificial contraception and gay marriage, we now have groups of people who wish to redefine something as basic as what sex they were born to be!. Whatever sex God made us, other than in the case of a hermaphrodite, it is the sex God wants us to be. If I had a 5 year old boy who told me that he wanted to be a girl, I’d find him a good Catholic therapist–NOT a surgeon. Not EVER a surgeon!

Transgendered people often think that changing their gender will solve other issues in their lives which couldn’t be further from the truth. I live on a small island in Alaska at the moment with only one psychiatrist. This person had the surgery and continued hormone treatment to go from male to female. He is now a 6’4" tall buffoon with a huge Adam’s apple and male pattern baldness–and oh, by the way, immediately after “becoming” a woman, he/she decided that she was a LESBIAN! Roll that one around in your head for a few minutes and you decide if the psychiatrist isn’t crazier than most of its patients! He/she had 2 sons. One of them committed suicide about 3 years ago by hanging himself from a ceiling fan, strip naked, above his/her bed. Go figure—

I think transgender issues are a mental illness that our sad, PC, anything goes, secular society is working really hard and overtime in an attempt to turn it into a bonafide illness. I don;t usually jump to the conclusion that possession by a demon is a potential explanation for poor, unhealthy or geneally bizarre or pathological behavior, but this transgender thing makes me truly wonder if maybe that isn’t the problem in a nutshell. Imagine a man wanting to have his penis chopped off and beast implants inserted or a woman wanting to have her breasts removed, grow a beard and have a non working penis created? It’s sick.

 

[anonymous_in_fl]

Yes, research and science changes over time.
I remember when smoking wasnt even linked to lung cancer.

Over time, with multiple replicated studies and longitudinal research we now have a better understanding. However, it doesnt explain every person who has a diagnosis of lung cancer who maybe has no family history of the disease and no exposure to second-hand smoke or other contributing factors.

So, in my personal and humble opinion, saying their is “conclusive evidence” regarding the origins or causation of transgender identity is (again in my opinion) very premature.

 

[Cricket2]

I am here to discuss the transgendered community, that group of people who believe they are a man/woman trapped in a woman/mans body. My question is, where do they come from? What on earth would make one desire to have inalterable surgery?

If one is a faithful Catholic, one cannot believe they were just “born that way” or that God truly desires them to have those thoughts of being a different gender. I think it is a bit strange, and have never met one to be honest. I also get the sense that noone can genuinley change their gender, they just become a parody of the gender they are trying to become.

My older brother has told me that he believes it is trauma of some sort that causes it, and apparently that many transgendereds have borderline personality disorder. An interesting theory.

Any thoughts?

One: It is wrong to assume that someone can’t be “born that way”. They are born that way. Transgendered folks can have both male and female sexual organs present at birth. Often what will be observed is that child who is transgendered will play and interact as either a male or female despite being opposite gender (via id at birth). In other words a “boy” will play games with girls, like dresses and dolls and want to wear make up.

If it is a girl she will often want to play traditional boy games, ball, want little to do with dolls and will simply hate wearing a dress. And no one is making them act this way. It is their natural tendency to act more like a boy than a girl. In addition these children will often start to indicate that they want to be the opposite gender at a very early age.

Two: Forget the personality junk. Part of this diagnosis is biased as there is still such rejection of the idea that if you look like a girl/boy on the outside then that is what you are. (Again many of these people have both sex organs at birth = true transgendered person.) Part of the personality problems they have come from societal ideas not themselves.

Three: Only a transgendered person should be deciding what gender they are or prefer. The used to let parents decide at birth of the child and operate then. That was very wrong and cruel. The person needs to make that choice and can. And making that choice is not a sin.

 

[z_0101]

To my understanding their is no “conclusive evidence” regarding the origins of transgender feelings/desire in a person. It may be some kind of mix or interplay between genetics, early life experiences, hormones, etc.

The jury is still out.

I wouldn’t state that the jury is out in all cases…

What has happened is that the research has been suppressed by both sides as there’s money and politics involved.

We do know from genetic testing that some people with this medical condition have a genetic mutation that results in a myriad of very difficult to treat physiological conditions often with multiple endocrine system imbalances based upon what the body type is cast as…

We do know that there is a small percentage of individuals that are born as hermaphrodites - in the not so distant past this condition has been hidden and the choice as to which sex to make the child made upon the whim of the doctor or parents… only to find out later that there was a dominate genetic state that sometimes matched the choice and often did not. Thankfully, we now understand that this is not a curse from God but a mutation that needs to be carefully treated.

Notice I said some… we also have cases where the person has these TG desires and yet there is no genetic nor endocrine system related imbalance that can be determined. In these cases, one has to look deeper into the physiological nature of the individual and the psychological state and this so far has been inconclusive in the cause effect aspect when there are no underlying medical condition. Most troubling are young children… more studies need to be done to determine the nature vs. nurture relationship in TG issues in teens to young children.

Most of this is easily found by a Google or DuckDuckGo searches… However, I’ve found that one really has to be careful to get scientific and peer reviewed literature as there are a lot of op-ed/ad-hoc sites that say that they have scientific proof and one has to really take a careful look at their sources.

 

[anonymous_in_fl]

I wouldn’t state that the jury is out in all cases…

What has happened is that the research has been suppressed by both sides as there’s money and politics involved.

We do know from genetic testing that some people with this medical condition have a genetic mutation that results in a myriad of very difficult to treat physiological conditions often with multiple endocrine system imbalances based upon what the body type is cast as…

We do know that there is a small percentage of individuals that are born as hermaphrodites - in the not so distant past this condition has been hidden and the choice as to which sex to make the child made upon the whim of the doctor or parents… only to find out later that there was a dominate genetic state that sometimes matched the choice and often did not. Thankfully, we now understand that this is not a curse from God but a mutation that needs to be carefully treated.

Notice I said some… we also have cases where the person has these TG desires and yet there is no genetic nor endocrine system related imbalance that can be determined. In these cases, one has to look deeper into the physiological nature of the individual and the psychological state and this so far has been inconclusive in the cause effect aspect when there are no underlying medical condition. Most troubling are young children… more studies need to be done to determine the nature vs. nurture relationship in TG issues in teens to young children.

Most of this is easily found by a Google or DuckDuckGo searches… However, I’ve found that one really has to be careful to get scientific and peer reviewed literature as there are a lot of op-ed/ad-hoc sites that say that they have scientific proof and one has to really take a careful look at their sources.

Yes, research still has much to reveal on this issue---- especially regarding “nature vs nurture” (bioglogical factors vs psychological factors vs environmental factors) . You are quite right: These considerations need to be teased apart and looked at carefully especially when dealing with minors.