Women’s college redefines ‘women’

[manualman]

I think by the time you hit year two of HRT and being treated as a woman you’d want to resume living as a guy and/or die.

Oh, I won’t be taking any drugs or getting surgeries or even dressing feminine. Who are you to say that those things are necessary to be taken seriously as an organic, transgender, butch, lesbian woman?

 

[OraLabora]

I don’t think it’s charitable or especially Catholic to make fun of a disorder that is an enormous cross to bear for those afflicted by it.

We should instead try to show some empathy, and if one can’t do that, at least keep silent and pray for them.

Some of the stuff I’m reading from Catholics who should know better makes me

 

[manualman]

There is a fine line between ‘being nice’ and crossing the line into a world of utter philosophical absurdity. Sometimes it isn’t “nice” to point out the fact that this line exists and that we shouldn’t cross it, but it still needs pointing out.

Sorry if I embarrass you, but my absurd example is precisely where we are headed if we agree to let internal feelings determine reality instead of objective reality. Less than 20 years ago, even gay people like Elton John considered the idea of “gay marriage” absurd and mocked it. Look what happened because everybody cared more about being nice than facing reality and telling the truth.

 

[OraLabora]

There is a fine line between ‘being nice’ and crossing the line into a world of utter philosophical absurdity. Sometimes it isn’t “nice” to point out the fact that this line exists and that we shouldn’t cross it, but it still needs pointing out.

Sorry if I embarrass you, but my absurd example is precisely where we are headed if we agree to let internal feelings determine reality instead of objective reality. Less than 20 years ago, even gay people like Elton John considered the idea of “gay marriage” absurd and mocked it. Look what happened because everybody cared more about being nice than facing reality and telling the truth.

We can discuss it charitably, even disagree, without making fun of it. I’m all for raising the level of discourse to one expected of Catholics when talking about people with a serious disorder whether mental or physical.

Would you make fun, for instance, of clinical depression or schizophrenia?

Note I’m not saying we have to believe in over-the-top politically-correct doublespeak.

But yes, I am saying we have to play nice. It’s the Catholic way.

 

[manualman]

Would you make fun, for instance, of clinical depression or schizophrenia?

No. But I’d mock ruthlessly anybody who suggests that we shouldn’t consider schizophrenia a problem and instead encourage schizophrenics to celebrate their diversity.

This really is the world we are starting to live in. Not long ago I read an article about deaf parents who angrily refused their doctor’s suggestion that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him. Apparently this arrogant quack actually felt that deafness was something undesirable and should be “cured” when possible and this highly offended the parents. The world has gone mad.

 

[Rau]

No. But I’d mock ruthlessly anybody who suggests that we shouldn’t consider schizophrenia a problem and instead encourage schizophrenics to celebrate their diversity.

This really is the world we are starting to live in. Not long ago I read an article about deaf parents who angrily refused their doctor’s suggestion that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him. Apparently this arrogant quack actually felt that deafness was something undesirable and should be “cured” when possible and this highly offended the parents. The world has gone mad.

Everyone agrees gender dysphoria is a problem needing treatment.

 

[OraLabora]

No. But I’d mock ruthlessly anybody who suggests that we shouldn’t consider schizophrenia a problem and instead encourage schizophrenics to celebrate their diversity.

This really is the world we are starting to live in. Not long ago I read an article about deaf parents who angrily refused their doctor’s suggestion that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him. Apparently this arrogant quack actually felt that deafness was something undesirable and should be “cured” when possible and this highly offended the parents. The world has gone mad.

I don’t disagree with you on substance. I’m reminded of my spiritual director who said man’s main goal is not to fulfill himself, it’s to surpass himself. It seems today that if we have a feeling, it must be validated as OK by everyone else.

But on manner, I guess I just don’t agree that mocking someone else’s sincerely held beliefs, no matter how wrong, is the best way to go about bringing them to the Truth.

 

[Joie_de_Vivre]

That is sad. It really is, and I have no easy answer.

But see, to me, I feel the exact same way when I am forced by rules or law to treat them as something OTHER than their birth sex. It really does “feel like a fraud and a mask that is suffocating” - to me. It offends against what I consider to be obvious reality, and coerces me to deny reality or pretend it does not exist, and actually pretend an alternate reality is in place, one where this male is a female or vice versa.

It’s a bit different when you compare the fact of the amount of time spent “pretending” is several orders of magnitude different especially when you request they live their entire life as a tortured existence so you can not have to put up with them for a couple hours.

My version of reality conflicts with theirs. Who is right? Well, in terms of objective reality, I am.

It doesn’t quite seem fair that rules like this force folks like me to play pretend in ways we find offensive just so somebody with a real mental problem can feel like they don’t have one.

How about we just let them act however they want, try our best to be kind, but not be obliged to participate in their fantasy? Wouldn’t that be fair to all?

In your version of objective reality you are right.

Ok fair enough but just to be clear you have shared a statement of belief not a fact.

Are you a woman? Have you ever been around a transgendered man with whom you did not get along and felt threatened physically? I am truly curious because to me this would be a real concern if I was a woman.

I’ve never felt threatened physically by a transgender person, usually pity is how I feel towards them.

If you define a man who pretends to be a woman in real life as transgender, then how would you have heard of a non-transgender man pretending to be a woman in real life? Do you mean like in Some Like It Hot?

Transwomen are sincere in believing and professing themselves to be women.

The mayor of Silverton, Oregon, self-identifies as transgender, but he also self-identifies as a man. He likes to dress in women’s clothing, he has had breast augmentation, he wears dresses to visit schools–sometimes dresses that are too short, it has been complained–but he doesn’t seem to mind being referred to as a guy. He uses male pronouns. I wouldn’t mind having dinner with him in a restaurant, but I would be uncomfortable having him use my locker room. He has a long-time girlfriends. But he also goes by Carla, sometimes.

This is a college that excludes men. Why is it wrong to exclude someone who is transgender? Why is it OK to exclude men, but not OK to exclude those who are transgender? What do you mean by “a certain class of men,” and what makes you think that the transgender group doesn’t have a similar “class”?

Some consider it wrong to exclude transwomen from a women’s university.

I’m pretty sure that if you can marry a woman and father her children, the Church considers you male. There is such a thing as getting too subtle about this question.

And in 20 years when it will be possible for someone born phenotypically female to father children? How about the woman who is genotypically XY and yet gave birth to a daughter who also is genotypically XY? What about individuals with CAIS who were botn phenotypically female and identify as such, but are genotypically male?

It is a desperately difficult situation. We have individuals who have a desperate need to “live” as the gender their brain insists they are. They make changes changes to their body in support of that need. Thereafter, on what basis are they to relate to the rest of us?

For many HRT works far better on the mind that antidepressants.

Oh, I won’t be taking any drugs or getting surgeries or even dressing feminine. Who are you to say that those things are necessary to be taken seriously as an organic, transgender, butch, lesbian woman?

To utterly reject anything related to womanhood shows fraudulence. A doctor’s sign off is normally necessary to get the sex on a birth certificate changed and if you have no intention of living as a woman despite claiming to be such they are highly unlikely to approve it.

 

[Miss_Felicity]

I think I’m less outraged by this than the average Catholic because the person who introduced me to Catholicism and remains one of the most devout people I know is transgendered. He has brought a lot of people to the church and done a lot of good. Had he been denied gender reassignment surgery he would have killed himself in his 20’s most likely.

 

[MaryT777]

It’s a good topic and it’s been a good discussion but I believe at the end of the day people then have the choice to attend the college or not if they disagree with the redefinition.

Mary.

 

[Sarcelle]

No. But I’d mock ruthlessly anybody who suggests that we shouldn’t consider schizophrenia a problem and instead encourage schizophrenics to celebrate their diversity.

This really is the world we are starting to live in. Not long ago I read an article about deaf parents who angrily refused their doctor’s suggestion that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him. Apparently this arrogant quack actually felt that deafness was something undesirable and should be “cured” when possible and this highly offended the parents. The world has gone mad.

Why do you have to mock? What good does that do?
You can disagree all you want but is there ever a need to put people down?
Just state the truth in a plain straightforward fashion.

 

[EasterJoy]

No. But I’d mock ruthlessly anybody who suggests that we shouldn’t consider schizophrenia a problem and instead encourage schizophrenics to celebrate their diversity.

Mockery isn’t much of a way to discuss the serious issue of how to treat someone who is suffering because he has a man’s body and DNA (and perhaps has been married and fathered children) but has a disorienting and disturbing “wrong” feeling that is only relieved when he takes on the persona of a female. These are guys who have held down jobs, played sports at the college level, and been competent in the activities of daily life, but are miserable at the idea that they have to live as a man and not a woman.

That is a quite different problem than having hallucinations, disorganized thinking, paranoid delusions, unpredictable behavior, resistance to instructions, inappropriate and bizarre postures, a complete lack of response, useless and excessive movement, or an overall inability to function in a way that would allow socialization with anyone else, even someone else with schizophrenia.

The person with gender dysphoria may ask to be treated as if their physical gender is the opposite of what it is, but he or she is not asking to be treated in a way that isn’t typical of many normal and unremarkable people of no particular attainment. They aren’t asking to be treated as if they were the Queen or the Pope. They aren’t asking to be male one day and female the next.

There is always a continuum on what accommodations we as a society make for the eccentricities and desires of certain individuals and which ones we don’t. There is a continuum on what is considered a uncomfortable difference, what is considered an affliction that requires treatment, what constitutes a true “cure” rather than an improper attempt at a solution, and what is an unacceptable imposition of the few on the many.

Let’s try to have the discussions without strife, if we can. The point against efforts to define a “transwoman” as the equivalent of someone who is a woman in every way can be made without getting insulting. There are international sports organizations that are wrestling with this very question, and the question does not always have obvious answers.

Forty years after the fact, would I allow Renée Richards (née Richard Raskind) to play women’s tennis, after competing with men for years? No way. Do I think it was deceptive to play as Renée while hiding the previous life as Richard? (The player was recognized via an unusual serve.) Absolutely. Did the New York Supreme Court decide differently? Yep.

This really is the world we are starting to live in. Not long ago I read an article about deaf parents who angrily refused their doctor’s suggestion that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him. Apparently this arrogant quack actually felt that deafness was something undesirable and should be “cured” when possible and this highly offended the parents. The world has gone mad.

Are you talking about a cochlear implant? That is a serious surgery, it destroys whatever hearing the affected ear has, and there have been mixed reviews from people old enough to communicate about the success of the operation.

Do not get me wrong…I have two hearing-impaired kids, and if their hearing had been far worse than it is, we would have considered a cochlear implant for them. I have seen children who have had the surgery, and I do not know any who aren’t very happy they’ve had it. Having said that, there are also deaf adults who have refused the procedure, and deaf adults whose parents made the decision for them who think it was the wrong one. It is legitimately the choice of the deaf person or the parents of a deaf child whether a cochlear implant is right for that person. I don’t think there is any reason to get angry at a doctor who tries to encourage parents to consider an implant. If a doctor pressed the issue too hard, as if the decision belonged to him, that is arrogant.

 

[henpecked]

hope it’s ok to be a trekkie in a Catholic forum…

beam me up Scotty…

mankind will be his own undoing.

 

[Rau]

…Not long ago I read an article about deaf parents who angrily refused their doctor’s suggestion that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him. Apparently this arrogant quack actually felt that deafness was something undesirable and should be “cured” when possible and this highly offended the parents. The world has gone mad.

I assume this aversion to the surgery was not so much a rational medical choice, but a desire to view the deafness as integral to the person and not to be changed. Hard to believe it could happen in reality, but I do recall a movie with that idea. It may have been a case where deaf parents preferred the child to remain deaf - not sure if that is accurate recall of the movie or not.

 

[EasterJoy]

I assume this aversion to the surgery was not so much a rational medical choice, but a desire to view the deafness as integral to the person and not to be changed. Hard to believe it could happen in reality, but I do recall a movie with that idea. It may have been a case where deaf parents preferred the child to remain deaf - not sure if that is accurate recall of the movie or not.

I think cochlear implants are one of the great achievements of modern medicine, but I do not see why refusing a cochlear implant is “irrational,” and I especially don’t know why it would always be irrational. Again, I say this as someone who knows people who have them.

There are times when a candidate has some hearing, and the surgery is a judgment call even from the point of view of an implant advocate. There are candidates who are totally deaf who still might not want to take on the responsibilities and limitations that go along with maintaining an implant. It is also such a new technology that the long-term risks really aren’t known.

After all, what if you had such poor vision that you could only see vague shapes, and someone could give you good vision–not so that you could play baseball, but so that you could read and maybe so you could drive a car–but with the caution that you would not be able to tell light from darkness if you lost battery power or damaged your seeing unit or if it merely fell off? You’d have to stay in First World conditions, and you have to take some care. Plus, a cochlear implant drills a permanent hole in your skull, which of course carries a certain amount of risk. Do you see the trade-off a little better now? Sure, you might accept the offer in a heartbeat yourself, but you can see that deciding against the new technology isn’t exactly “irrational.”

 

[Rau]

I think cochlear implants are one of the great achievements of modern medicine, but I do not see why refusing a cochlear implant is “irrational,” and I especially don’t know why it would always be irrational. Again, I say this as someone who knows people who have them.

There are times when a candidate has some hearing, and the surgery is a judgment call even from the point of view of an implant advocate. There are candidates who are totally deaf who still might not want to take on the responsibilities and limitations that go along with maintaining an implant. It is also such a new technology that the long-term risks really aren’t known.

After all, what if you had such poor vision that you could only see vague shapes, and someone could give you good vision–not so that you could play baseball, but so that you could read and maybe so you could drive a car–but with the caution that you would not be able to tell light from darkness if you lost battery power or damaged your seeing unit or if it merely fell off? You’d have to stay in First World conditions, and you have to take some care. Plus, a cochlear implant drills a permanent hole in your skull, which of course carries a certain amount of risk. Do you see the trade-off a little better now? Sure, you might accept the offer in a heartbeat yourself, but you can see that deciding against the new technology isn’t exactly “irrational.”

I’d did not suggest anyone was being irrational. The poster who raised the matter seemed to have determined from the article he read that the aversion was in fact not based on weighing the medical pros and cons. Perhaps he can clarify for us?

 

[EasterJoy]

I’d did not suggest anyone was being irrational. The poster who raised the matter seemed to have determined from the article he read that the aversion was in fact not based on weighing the medical pros and cons. Perhaps he can clarify for us?

It is not clear what the original situation was. My point was that the objections certainly could have been medical or purely practical. The reasons could also be rational without being driven by concerns about medical risks.

When you chose to write not “a medical choice” but rather “a rational medical choice,” though, you could seem to be implying that making the choice against an cochlear implant for other than medical reasons is not rational. To say that without knowing the history of the education of the deaf, the evolution of sign language, and the culture surrounding the use of sign language is premature at the very least. Again: I say this as someone who is pro-implant. The decision to implant is not one to be made lightly. Physicians do not have the right to bully parents into making it, and if an implant advocate pressed his or her case too strongly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents got angry about it. That situation is only the sign of a “world gone mad” to those who don’t fully understand the nature of the choice.

I did not mean to imply that you were accusing anyone of being irrational. I meant to say that your wording could be taken that way. I’m sorry if I unwittingly made rash implications about you that I did not mean to make!

To get back to the point of this thread, physicians treating gender dysphoria by trying to surgically and chemically alter patients so that the patients more closely resemble the gender that they believe is their “true” gender are not irrational. There are patients who report significant relief when they look more like the gender they feel they are, and relieving suffering is one of the things that doctors try to do. Since the symptoms sometimes drive patients to true despair, that relief may be no small thing! That is not to say the treatment is “right” or does not have unacceptable societal side-effects or even that it works in the long run. That is only to say that the treatment is something a rational person might think is warranted.

The problem is that this symptom relief does not prove that a patient is “really” a different sex than the physical attributes they were born with lead everyone to believe. Some people believe that the relief is proof that the person really is the gender they desire to be, even though the person was not ambiguous in chromosomes or external sexual attributes. Since the same logical conclusion does not follow from similar means of providing symptom relief for similar mental afflictions–no one thinks that achieving symptom relief by indulging a patient with delusions proves that it is the delusions that are real–it is a real leap to come to this conclusion with regards to gender dysphoria.

 

[Rau]

It is not clear what the original situation was. My point was that the objections certainly could have been medical or purely practical. The reasons could also be rational without being driven by concerns about medical risks.

When you chose to write not “a medical choice” but rather “a rational medical choice,” though, you could seem to be implying that making the choice against an cochlear implant for other than medical reasons is not rational. To say that without knowing the history of the education of the deaf, the evolution of sign language, and the culture surrounding the use of sign language is premature at the very least. Again: I say this as someone who is pro-implant. The decision to implant is not one to be made lightly. Physicians do not have the right to bully parents into making it, and if an implant advocate pressed his or her case too strongly, I wouldn’t be surprised if the parents got angry about it. That situation is only the sign of a “world gone mad” to those who don’t fully understand the nature of the choice.

I did not mean to imply that you were accusing anyone of being irrational. I meant to say that your wording could be taken that way. I’m sorry if I unwittingly made rash implications about you that I did not mean to make!

No problem. The other poster wrote:

I read an article about deaf parents who **angrily refused **their doctor’s **suggestion **that surgery for their young child that might be able to establish some hearing for him.

I’ve assumed that the parents were not bullied, because that was not said by the poster, but my response to him was to solicit did we have the whole story. I’d be interested to know what “drove” the angry refusal. Perhaps it was the kind of factors that cropped up in that movie to which I referred earlier? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_Nothing_in_My_Ear ]

Issues of deaf culture / pride are somewhat more understandable in the context of adults dealing with their own circumstances. I think viewing the deafness of a **young child **as something different from a medical condition deserving of prudent medical treatment, is a big call.

 

[DarkLight]

Something for consideration:

I know people with DID. I have interacted with alters. I don’t believe that’s a healthy way to be and I would certainly think they should work towards integration. Nonetheless it’s more helpful for the person to be treated as how they are at the time, so long as that personality isn’t disruptive. I wouldn’t view that as encouraging them, just as doing what’s best at the time of what I can do.

 

[Rau]

The problem is that this symptom relief does not prove that a patient is “really” a different sex than the physical attributes they were born with lead everyone to believe. Some people believe that the relief is proof that the person really is the gender they desire to be, even though the person was not ambiguous in chromosomes or external sexual attributes. Since the same logical conclusion does not follow from similar means of providing symptom relief for similar mental afflictions–no one thinks that achieving symptom relief by indulging a patient with delusions proves that it is the delusions that are real–it is a real leap to come to this conclusion with regards to gender dysphoria.

Our sex and sexuality would appear to be very complex things - far more so than we all learned in high school. Clearly our whole body reflects - embodies - our sex, including our brain (hardware) and mind (software). When any of these elements are out of step, we have a problem. Is there a definitive marker that represents the “true sex”? If the dysphoria patient is unable to cope “as is”, the issue is how to best help them.