Dude... don't give them any ideas.

There were times in our lives where we wish we were someone else or something else. I think that as we go through life we learn to accept who and what we are and we learn to accept and respect each other's individuality too.

I admit I don't really get it about transgender folks because I've never had such issues myself, but, really, is it that big a deal? We're talking about a tiny potion of the population who, for whatever reason, feel like genuine mutants in their bodies. They are deeply unhappy in their genders; some so unhappy they commit suicide. If they are able to fix this, and it doesn't really impact the rest of us, why make a fuss? We fix cleft pallets and clubbed feet, tan our skin and tone our muscles (or not), so why the anxiety about gender change? Lots of people dislike their bodies and attempt to change them, surgically or otherwise...
And I don't think this is a slippery slope. I honestly doubt that most "normal" people are going to rush out and switch genders because some basketball player did. That's a lot of hassle and money (not to mention derision from bloggers) to endure unless the compulsion is extremely strong.
That being said, what if you woke up a sequoia? Wouldn't that be cool? Unless of course someone surgically turned you into a picnic table upon which to serve your inner child a bowl of streaming Maypo...

Brilliant! This kind of thing is seeping into our culture and nobody will touch it for fear of the PC police. What ever happened to speaking truth to power. And besides, why is a person who believes he is King Henry VIII a patient and a person born male who thinks he's female, not?

In Canada, a couple is raising their 3rd child without a gender: you heard it right, they are purposely denying their own child his or her right to their assigned, genetic and biological gender because they want to prove a point as they put it.

This is madness; the emperor has no clothes and everyone's too afraid to say it.

In a word—vicious. Rarely have I read anything in a respectable publication that was so full of contempt and so lacking in charity.

If being transgendered is something for which a person requires psychiatric help, it does not deserve to be ridiculed. And it is not the business of an unnamed sports reporter for the Associated Press to take a stand on whether to call a transgendered person he or she.

Gender identity is a phenomenon that is far from being fully understood. But there is some credible evidence that—to vastly oversimplify—a female-to-male transgendered person has a female body and a male brain.

David,
I couldn't have said better. This was a jaw-dropping column. I have come to expect much much more from FT. Much of what goes on in N. America about sex and culture is ripe for sarcasm, but this. . .this was simply "full of contempt and so lacking in charity." This is not "speaking the truth to power". Those who seek reassignment surgery are not the power barons of this world. Shame

Mr. Nickol's comment just made me grin really wide! I challenge any scientist to prove the existence of even one sample of a human body comprised of cells containing the XY chromosome in the brain and XX chromosomes in any part of the body! Seriously, just one sample.

On a more serious note this topic has to be one of the most hilarious subjects I have ever read about. If anyone can prove a biological basis for the psychological but profound confusion that is transgender disorder, then we will at least be able to start working on a real cure. Until then the issue remains psychological and a delusion, plain and simple. Where we go from there is up for grabs but the facts are just that, the facts!

PS Really scary if you stop and think about the real world implications of this kind of thinking, if you can even call it that.

Great piece Anthony, and hysterical. I don't see "vicious" here. I fail to see how anybody can look at the lunacy of self-definition and unhinged self-modification/mutation that constitutes our confused age and say anything other than "Amen!" to this.

Yes, there are some real and tragic issues at stake here, but there is also a fair measure of outright weirdness fostered by a culture that has lost it's compass but not it's scalpel.

In a land of the deaf and blind, you have to shout loudly and draw startling pictures (with apologies to Flannery O'Conner!).

Great piece Anthony, and hysterical. I don't see "vicious" here. I fail to see how anybody can look at the lunacy of self-definition and unhinged self-modification/mutation that constitutes our confused age and say anything other than "Amen!" to this.

Yes, there are some real and tragic issues at stake here, but there is also a fair measure of outright weirdness fostered by a culture that has lost it's compass but not it's scalpel.

In a land of the deaf and blind, you have to shout loudly and draw startling pictures (with apologies to Flannery O'Conner!).

In a word-hilarious. There's nothing vicious about skewering "journalists" and their obsequious credulousness when confronted with certain topics. As for those folks who will miss the point of the column and see it as an opportunity to display their refined, compassionate, properly crafted sensibilities, thank you for taking time out from watching "The View" and writing.

I shouldn't be laughing this hard over something this sick, but I am.

David,

I think it's fairly obvious that the author was not ridiculing those in need of psychiatric help. He was ridiculing those who do not need psychiatric help, but pretend to be unable to discern whether there's something wrong with a woman's claims to be a man. He was ridiculing the voluntarily foolish, not the involuntarily sick.

Or course, this is no longer any kind of 'new' thing, it now being nearly 60 years since George Jorgensen had himself surgically altered into 'Christine'.

A young woman of my family's acquaintance has undergone the same procedure as that sought by the young basketball player, and you are certainly correct in saying that she needs psychiatric help. It is unutterably sad. Sad enough for my wife and me, who have known her since she was born, and for our oldest daughter, who was her childhood friend and playmate. And crushingly sad for her mother.

The whole thing amounts to a massive fooling of herself, in attempting to fool Mother Nature. For all the hair sprouting from her chin due to 'hormone therapy', or the amputated breasts, as The Moz points out above, she hasn't got a Y chromosome in her body, no matter how much she wishes she did.

I hesitate to get all 'doctrinaire', but it seems to me to be symptomatic of our society's radical individualism - if I want to be a man, then, by God, I'm a man, and who the hell are you to say otherwise? That and, you know, the gullibility of journalists. . .

And extra points for the Haystacks Calhoun reference. . .

I am deeply disturbed by the uncharitable and mean-spirited comments of David and Peter who seem to completely miss the point of the satire. Even in the FT comments section, I expect better critical engagement with the article.

Hilarious. Why does everyone have to be so serious all the time? I think this column captures a feeling that a lot of us have: that we live in a world where down is up and up is down.

Oddly enough Jesus himself, Heaven itself, is something of a gender-bender it seems: when asked about marriage in Heaven, Jesus told us that in heaven, there is "neither male nor female."

Here as usual, "conservatives" aren't really following the BIble or God. Actually, they are just following their own bourgoise prejudices. Which they have mistaken for God himself.

Dear readers -- I don't mean to hurt the poor girl. She clearly needs psychiatric help. I do mean to attack the journalists who now promote the confusion. For instance -- I've yet to read, in any vehicle such as the New York Times, an honest article on the etiology of same-sex attraction among males. Not one; and yet just in the last few weeks I've been sent a great number of accounts, from perfect strangers, of how they were abused or neglected by their fathers, often with shocking cruelty, and how they have spent decades thereafter searching for their masculine identity.

So I do not find the SI article on this particular girl to be compassionate. True compassion exacts a cost. But to go along with the girl costs the author of the article nothing. It would cost something, if he bravely referred to her as "she," because in fact she is female. That's not much by way of bravery, but it is something at least, and it is true. It would be far more brave if he had examined the issue more closely; there are connections to be drawn here between people who desire a sexually mutilated body (which is what she will end up with), and people who go to doctors demanding that they amputate a healthy limb.

Underlying all the issues regarding sex in this country is a full-scale denial of truth. For instance, we know quite well that when a man and a woman have sexual intercourse, they are doing the baby-making thing; yet we pretend that the baby-making is quite extrinsic to the nature of the act, so that we can pretend that, if a baby is made, it is "accidental," rather like a piano falling from a great height upon an innocent bystander. We know quite well -- we have unanimous evidence from over a thousand cultures independent of one another -- that boys are, well, boys. But we pretend that it is not so, and drug the poor kids up with Ritalin, simply because they find it impossible to sit in a chair for six or seven hours in a row. I could go on and on here.

I'll just say again that I mean the girl no harm. Somebody responsible should take her under his counsel. But the absurdity of it all boggles the mind. What if she should decide next week that she's a female after all? That would not change matters one bit. Just as it does not alter anything in reality, if a woman suddenly decides that she is going to bear to term the child in her womb, rather than procuring an abortion. It does not suddenly become a child because she says it is.

I see this article as ridiculing society instead of individual people, who do deserve our compassion and Christian charity. But as Benedict XVI has reminded us, charity is meaningless (or potentially harmful) outside of truth. And the truth is that a human person is one, body and soul. Transgender reassignment is based on the false premise of body-soul dualism. In other words, the "true" reality of a person is the mind (or the "spirit", or however one defines the immaterial) which happens to find itself confined within the gross matter of the body. Transgender reassignment is akin to saying that one's body does not, in fact, reflect the reality of the person whatsoever. The "real" person is male, not the female body you see (or vice versa).

This fundamentally dualistic metaphysics does have consequences for society. Though I don't know its name, there is a psychological disorder where a person believes that one of his limbs is not really part of his body. It "belongs" to someone else, and therefore, the person will stop at nothing to remove the invading limb. Clearly, in this case, the person needs psychological treatment, not a surgeon ready and willing to amputate. So why are we as a society so willing to amputate and mutilate genitalia? Also, can I claim that I am actually a black man trapped in a white man's body? Can I apply for a job or for scholarships on such an absurd pretense?

Points to Freeman! I expected the petulant reactions like David’s and Peter’s to Mr. Esolen's humorous article, but Freeman’s comment reaches a whole new level. Freeman, you turned that dial all the way to eleven!

@mcasey - Of course, 'sex-change' surgery is of an entirely different order than a face-lift, or a nose-job. 'Sex-change' surgery doesn't 'fix' anything - at any level deeper than the merely cosmetic, it doesn't change anything, either. The woman who 'felt like a man' is still, ontologically, a woman (the Y-chromosome thing, among others), only now surgically mutilated. . .

@Freeman - If this were Heaven, you might have a point. Or you might not; 'male/female' is a much narrower, and more specific distinction than 'masculine/feminine'. But, you may have noticed, in any case, this ain't Heaven, and here we DO have male and female. (Nice use of the snotty/snide 'as usual', though. . .)

Freeman! There is so much error in your comment that I barely know where to begin!

In Genesis we read that "Male and female He created them in the image of God." (1:26-28). Jesus tells us that will be different in heaven, but we're not there yet. So let's leave things the way God meant them to be, otherwise, who is playing God?

Freeman, Last time I checked, none of us was living in heaven. We are, however, living in a world that was created by God in bodies the forms of which were created by God. How is recognizing the difference between male and female not "really following the Bible or God?" And those who can recognize the difference but pretend not to for silly political/cultural reasons deserve every ounce of the scorn Esolen pours on them. Those who really don't recognize the difference deserve some kind of mental help. That, by the way is one reason their enablers who really know better deserve such scorn.

Good view points,. I am a fan of Malcolm Muggeridge. By the 1960s, his spiritual beliefs began to become more significant in his professional career. He became a figure of some ridicule and satire as he took to frequently denouncing the new sexual laxity of the swinging sixties on radio and television. He particularly railed against "Pills and Pot" – birth control pills and cannabis. He was contemptuous of fellow countrymen the Beatles. In a 1968 article in Esquire magazine, he called them "four vacant youths... dummy figures with tousled heads (and) no talent."
Every body is responsible for their own actions and every one will get back for what they did. Life is hard but learn to challenge it, become good at winning not whining.

Albert writes: "I am deeply disturbed by the uncharitable and mean-spirited comments of David and Peter who seem to completely miss the point of the satire."

This column was not an example of satire - and if it was trying to be, it failed. Rather it is an example of mockery - and one whose author seems to be very arrogant and dismissing (right from the third sentence, even before the topic has been raised!). To point out mean-spiritedness is not to be mean-spirted. I think First Things can and should do a lot better.

All , for more on the subject please read two articles-- one in this Journal-- title "Surgical Sex" by Paul McHugh Nov 2004 and the other is at a web site called The Catholic Thing published this week , 5-20-11 TITLE --" A Look at the T in GLBT.

From personnal experience- I have a 35 year old son who announced his intention to have himself castrated and take injections of female hormones. Declaring that this would make him female. The issue takes on a different urgency when its family.

David Nickol is a fusty old Victorian spinster with perpetual vapors, trapped inside the body of a Man of Tomorrow from a Brave New World. ; )

@mcasey - Of course, 'sex-change' surgery is of a vastly different order than a face-lift or a nose-job. And the surgery itself doesn't 'fix' anything - the psychological troubles that lie at the root of the problem are only being dealt with cosmetically. And, beyond the level of the merely cosmetic, the surgery doesn't change anything, either - the young woman is STILL a woman, only surgically mutilated.

@Freeman - If we were in Heaven, you might have a point. Or you might not - 'male/female' is a much narrower, and more specific distinction than 'masculine/feminine'. At any rate, you may have noticed that we AREN'T in Heaven, and we DO have male and female here. (Nice use of the snotty/snide 'as usual', though. . .)

I am probably way out of my intellectual league here: but don't intersex people exist? Even if she has the physique of a woman, could there be more going on here than meets the eye?

The piece would be uncharitable, in my opinion, if it dealt with journalists alone and did not mention the transgendered athlete.

I remember when Ann Curry of the Today Show did a stand-up comedy routine and told a joke about her father, American born and fond of jokes, and her mother, whose first language was Japanese and who often didn't get her husbands jokes. She told the story of her father saying to her mother, "A horse walks into the bar, and the bartender asks, 'Why the long face?'" To which her mother replies, "Why horse in bar???" I fail to see the humor in Esolen's piece, so I am afraid I must approach it a bit like Ann Curry's mother.

Esolen purports not to be criticizing the transgendered athlete, but rather the unnamed Associated Press reporter. Every journalistic organization has style rules, and the AP's style is to refer to a transgendered person using pronouns of the gender that person identifies as. So this particular reporter is not confused about gender. He (or she) was simply following AP style. Esolen then might fault the Associated Press for their policy on transgendered individuals, but one might really ask if it is up to the associated press to take a firm stand on the issue of transgendered individuals.

Gender is not as simple as many here would like to make it out to be. Here's a brief quote from Wikipedia on Gender Verification in Sports: "While it would seem a simple case of checking for XX vs. XY chromosomes to determine whether an athlete is a woman or a man, it is not that simple. Fetuses start out as female, and the Y chromosome turns on a variety of hormones that differentiate the baby as a male. Sometimes this does not occur, and XX people with two x chromosomes can develop hormonally as a male, and XY people with an X and a Y can develop hormonally as a female." In addition to that, not everyone is XX or XY. There are also individuals who can be any of the following: XXY, XXYY, XXXY, XYY, XO, and XXX . I can't find the details now, but there was a recent case of and XXY person (Klinefelter syndrome) who was refused permission to marry by the Catholic Church because they said a person with two X chromosomes is a woman. Those with Klinefelter syndrome are considered by the medical profession to be males with an extra X chromosome, not females with a Y chromosome.

And that's just the issue as far as chromosomes are concerned. It seems to me the question of what gender (and certainly gender identity) cannot be answered by checking the persons genetalia. There have been a number of studies of the brains of transgendered individuals. Here is the most recent one I know of:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022395610001585

It is not a matter of an XX person having XY cells in the brain. It is a matter of an XX transgendered person having some brain structures that are more similar to a typical XY person's brain than a non-transgendered XX person's brain. Suppose, just for the sake of argument, that there really is something in the brain that makes a person feel like a man (or a woman) and it is possible for an XY individual to have that brain characteristic that makes him feel like a woman, or for an XX individual to make her feel like a man. If such a brain characteristic exists (and who knows for sure?) that person does not have a psychiatric illness, he or she has a neurological condition in which his or her gender identity does not match her or his body. Try to imagine life from that person's perspective. If gender identity is neurologically determined, what Anthony Esolen wants is for those XXs who feel they are men, because their brain tells them so, to learn to masquerade as women, and those XYs who feel they are women, because their brain tells them so, to learn to masquerade as men. Imagine doing that yourself. How many of the men out there would be comfortable living the rest of their lives as a woman?

There is much, much more to be considered. What is it about a man that makes him a man. In the Catholic Church, only a man can be ordained a priest, but what is it a man possesses that a woman does? A penis? A Y chromosome?

One final thing, for now, in an case. Christians, and particularly Catholics, should realize that their own religious beliefs rest on things not always being what they seem, even under the most intense scientific scrutiny.

My Lord Anthony,

To summarize:
Those who can – do.
Those who can’t – teach.
Those who can do neither – become journalists.

Linda,

It is rare (but not extremely rare) for children to be born with ambiguous genitalia. Read the Mayo Clinic's information about this condition.
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/ambiguous-genitalia/DS00668

Here's an interesting part:

----------
Assigning the sex
Using the information gathered from these tests, your doctor may suggest an appropriate sex for the baby. The suggestion will be based on the genetic sex, anatomy and future reproductive and sexual potential. Usually, a family can make a decision within a few days after the birth. Parents should be aware that as the child grows up, he or she may make a different decision about gender identification. You may want to consider giving the baby a gender-neutral first name.
----------

There are many factors taken into account as to which sex to assign. It is not always a matter of chromosomes, but which sex can be most successfully assigned. Suppose you are one of these persons and were genetically male (XY) but the choice was to make you physically female. Suppose, then, you grow up considering yourself to be a normal female in every respect. Would Anthony Eslolen have a right to suggest you need a psychiatrist because you believe you are a woman? And suppose, on the other hand, you are genetically male (XY) but the choice was made to make you physically female, and you grow up feeling you are really a man. Would Anthony Esolen send you to a psychiatrist because your gender identity did not match your physical appearance?

Well, the furry subculture has "otherkin" who really do believe that inside of them are unicorns and dragons. Furries themselves cosplay as animals in a modern version of totemism. You really can't make it up.

Dear Linda,

There are hermaphrodites. If I'm not mistaken, they are never fertile in both sexes; they are usually infertile in both sexes. These are, of course, exceedingly rare -- though one of them makes a great speech in Flannery O'Connor's A Temple of the Holy Spirit. There are also some people, very few, with a genetic abnormality that renders the Y chromosome inactive. These people end up with female bodies, basically female everything; they are women, because the action of the distinguishing masculine chromosome was thwarted. With regard to sex, it's like having a single X chromosome. These women are always infertile. Jamie Lee Curtis is one, as she discovered only in adulthood, when she tried to have a child.

The problem of hermaphroditism is that of an infirmity attendant upon our condition in this life. It is on the order of Siamese twinning, or being born with extra digits, or being born without a limb. It is a medical condition perhaps amenable to some treatment; it is not a condition that we should allow people to attempt to obtain. There are probably some women with an unusually high level of testosterone, and some men with an unusually high level of estrogen. But let's be clear -- even a woman who has a high level of testosterone has quite little of it compared with the typical man (one eighth), and of course she's a woman. A man with an unusually high level of estrogen is still a man, and if the estrogen causes some enlargement of the breasts, that can be treated with therapy.

I do not see how it is compassionate to "help" people into mutilation.

I also do not see how it is compassionate to raise to prominence those people who seek sexual mutilation.

An interesting story from a colleague: homeless people in Boston were divided by sex into two rooms, with separate bathrooms. The homeless women objected when a man who dressed as a woman, and who I think had had breast implantation, tried to join them. They knew that he was a he, and didn't want him around....

Anthony Esolen,

Clearly others disagree, but it is difficult for me to read your extended list of "I believe that I am . . . (transclassed, transplaneted, metasexed, ranskingdomed, transentitied, transeval, transfat, transnumbered, transchristian, semigendered, transmasculine)" examples as being aimed at a journalist rather than at transgendered people in general and this transgendered athlete in particular. Whether you believe being transgendered is a psychiatric problem or not does not mean it is not real.

Also, to believe the AP should have dealt with the whole issue of transgendered people in a brief story about a star athlete deciding not to play another season due to injuries is asking a bit much of sports reporting.

Satire is a form of mockery...and he never mocked the girl. People really need to work on their reading comprehension.

@Linda, yes, but that is not the case here. Also, as she claims to feel male yet wants to play with the girls. There is a logic problem there not a biology problem.

Hilarious piece.

Very well said.

The root cause of this situation was the growing need for liberals to pander to every fringe group imaginable in order to build enough of a constituency to vote for them.

Many years ago, the gay community realized the political power they could unleash if they sold their vote as a bloc to the highest bidder. Those (liberal dems) with no principles or genuine compassion for gays had no hesitation when it came to giving gays whatever they wanted in order to secure their vote. And that includes access to children, special rights, and or course, the oxymoron, gay marriage.

This whole issue is wrapped up in power politics. Nothing more, nothing less.

David, the genetic maladies (and that's what they are) that you point out are rare. You put me in mind of the saying "hard cases make bad law." Using those freakish (in the sense of rare and abnormal) occurrences to define gender or "deconstruct" the definition of gender is akin to using congenital myopia to define or "deconstruct" sight (myopics are neither clear sighted nor blind, so the whole distinction must be bogus) or being born lame to define or "deconstruct" walking. It's a red herring.

Actually, Freeman, in the passage(s) you refer to in which Jesus is speaking of marriage in Heaven (Matthew 22:30 / Mark 12:25), He doesn't say, "neither male nor female"; He says, "they neither marry nor are given in marriage", in answer to the question from the Sadducees about the woman who'd had seven earthly husbands. Perhaps maleness/femaleness survives into the Next Life, after all. . .

'Neither male nor female' is from Galatians 3:28, in which Paul is speaking about Christian unity. . .

Typical Tony Esolen, which is to say brilliant!

"For instance, we know quite well that when a man and a woman have sexual intercourse, they are doing the baby-making thing." This is so simplistic and reductionist it's almost laughable. This writer is a polemicist who has nothing new to say. And about the etiology of same-sex attraction, please read the extensive literature on the topic. Said etiology, it must be said, changes absolutely nothing. If I'm a gay male due to the lack of a father figure during my sexual development years, for example, how does that make sexual acts between men "wrong" or "contra natura"? The only thing this proves is that men are "generally" attracted to women and viceversa, not that they have to be.

CGK is correct, it seems to me. It is my understanding that Jesus is the first (and only) example so far of the Resurrection of the Dead. (Those Jesus raised from the dead were brought back to earthly life.) Jesus was recognized as a man after the Resurrection even by those who didn't realize it was he. So based on that, there will be males and females in Heaven. The unanswered question is whether or not—to the extent it makes any sense whatsoever to discuss souls separated from bodies—souls are male and female.

David,

I want to thank you for your careful, generous, and informed analysis on this and other threads. Every Sunday, I worship with people who have had the kind of surgery being mocked here, and so my thanks are on their behalf as well.

Every Sunday, I witness again the transformative power of the gospel, but it doesn’t exist here on this site.

@alex - it's a shame that someone of Mr. Esolen's considerable talents should stoop to say something so obvious and simplistic and reductionist and yet your objection (vague as it is) demonstrates why it is so necessary.

I'm constantly amazed at how the basic engineering functions of our genitalia and related gametes can be denied and rationalized away. I'm further amazed by the straight-faced feigned confusion about the components of the reproductive system vis a vis the components of the digestive system followed by the inevitable lecture about how, as a Christian, I fail to appreciate the truths of science.

Fred,

If you were going to explain an abstract concept—let's say, justice—to children, you would stick to the easy cases. But if you are a philosopher or a law professor writing a book titled "What Is Justice?", surely you would take on some of the hard cases. For those who want to say gender can be explained "man, xy, penis" and "woman, xx, vagina," they're free to do keep it on that level. I myself prefer to go a little deeper than that.

I would prefer to say genetic "anomalies" rather than genetic "maladies." As far as I know, all the genetic anomalies involving X and Y chromosomes are harmful, so it is not unreasonable to think of them in negative terms. But the reason we exist (that is, the reason humans evolved) is because of random mutations. It took millions of genetic "errors" to bring human beings into existence.

I am Long John Silver trapped in a normal man's body. I am going to have a leg surgically removed. And never mind that I am a character from fiction. What matters are my feelings about my identity. I am a transfictional-pirate. Or a trans-piratical fictional character. Or something.

But seriously, if a woman thinks she's a man or vice versa, what he/she needs is therapy not surgery. Tony is not attacking her, but rather the mentality that would recommend the latter instead of the former. Going back to Long John Silver, if a man existed who was convinced that he only had one leg when he in fact had two, would anyone recommend surgery to him as an option?

Tony

"[W]hen a man and a woman have sexual intercourse, they are doing the baby-making thing" is so clear and simple, it is simply brilliant. You are one of the very best there is at speaking the Truth with crystal clarity. It matters not if what you say is new, only so long as it is true.

Thank you.

Rob G., there is actually a disorder in which people seek "amputation by choice." It's called Bodily Integrity Disorder. They want to amputate healthy limbs because they feel that the limbs ought to be missing. Ethical surgeons don't go along. I'm not sure that there is a hypothetical so far out that somebody isn't already there.

Luke1732 writes:

". I'm further amazed by the straight-faced feigned confusion about the components of the reproductive system vis a vis the components of the digestive system followed.."

Very funny!  

Also,  the original article is a wonderful skewering of a rich target. Funny stuff!  

Remember this article on transgendered issues?
http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/02/surgical-sex--35

Well, I really am an RC Sproul, though not THE RC Sproul. I do, however, as his son, know THE RC Sproul, and you sir, are no RC Sproul. You are however, both funny and on target here. Well done. Perhaps one day the world will no longer judge the transentitied.

D.D - for diabolical disorientaion , as mentioned by the Fatima visionary Sr.Lucy , who so attributed the problems of our age !

Instead of laughter , needing more calliing on The Name , into all lives that are so disoriented due to confusion in the sexual realms , where The Grand Design has been for one man for one woman and anything that rebel against it, even in lustful looks ( does watching 'bad movies ' with glee include this ! ) can be windows for the agent of disorienation !

Exorcism more than just psychological help seems to be the need of the day !

@Luke1732: You are reading too much into my comment. I'm not denying the "basic engineering functions of our genitalia and related gametes" nor am I rationalizing it away. I'm not feigning confusion about the components of the reproductive system, etc, either. To say that when people are having sex they are doing the "baby-making thing" IS reductive. Most Christians, for example, don't believe this and when they do, they don't act in accordance with their principles. Human beings are more than biological beings with biological functions and needs. As you probably know, sex and gender are not the same thing. A gay boy is not denying that he is a boy. He is just attracted to other boys. Our society has restricted how boys and girls should behave to such an extent that it has become oppresive. When somebody deviates from the norm, they make them pay and create in them a terrible sense of self-hatred.

"Ethical surgeons don't go along."

Yes, that was my point. If a man was convinced that he should have an arm where his penis is, we'd recommend a psychiatrist. But if he's convinced he should have a vagina there we say "Of course!," and ship him off to a surgeon. Since it has to do with sex, we give it a pass, despite its being patently ridiculous.

@alex: A boy who is sexually attracted to other boys should receiving the same compassionate counseling as a boy who is sexually attracted to his sister, no matter how much he loves her. I'm not willing to tolerate his attraction to his sister just to avoid his potential self-hatred.

"Since it has to do with sex, we give it a pass, despite its being patently ridiculous"

But somehow it's not patently ridiculous to say, "Exorcism more than just psychological help seems to be the need of the day"

@luke1732: The old and tired comparison to incest! Homosexuality and incest are two different things. Let me begin by saying that I think that incest is morally wrong. But I don't know why YOU think that it's wrong. Is is because it produces children with birth defects? Sometimes it doesn't. And if the husband in the incestuous couple told you that he got a vasectomy and therefore cannot have children, what would your objection be to his relationship with his mom, or his sister? Homosexuality does not have this problem. It doesn't produce children. This has been used as an argument against it, but do all marriages produce children? Are they less valid because of it? Is it mandatory to reproduce? Please don't use the "go and multiply" line of reasoning. God could have been talking to the majority but not to all. Priests and nuns don't have children and nobody says that they are immoral. Once again you are reducing everything to biology.

Sadly, in the world of PC medicine, endocrinologists and surgeons will not recommend treatment for this young woman's Gender Identity Disorder, nor recommend that she read the leading textbook on this topic by Zucker and Bradley who have successfully treated this disorder for decades in Toronto. Nor will they provide informed consent to her in regard to the dangers of the surgery from the medical literature, including the 2011research article from Sweden on the long-term follow-up of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery (Dhejne C, et al.) that demonstrated that persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population.

I am not a fan of Gordon Ramsay (the foul mouthed TV chef), but sometimes I am confronted by news stories where by way of response my internal dialogue runs to (and I will initial this rather than spell the words) "O.F.F.S.". Anthony Esolen has channelled incredulous exasperation into comedy. Wonderful!

Steve

That is one of the best posts I have read in a very long time indeed.

I would not have believed, had I not encountered numerous instances of it that a person could be both a thorough-going materialist and a radical dualist.

Even many Christians have adopted a Cartesian view of the soul (which they identify with the “Mind” or “Self,”) as a sort of “ghost in a machine,” to use the hackneyed, but expressive phrase.

Aristotle, the philosopher of common sense, called human beings “rational animals.” There is no mystery about what a (human) person is: we all understand expressions like, “the person over there,” or “Offences against the Person.” It means a living, human body.

The “mind” is not a thing, but an hypostasized abstraction. Self-knowledge is knowledge of the object that one is, of the human animal that one is. “Introspection” is but one contributory method. It is a rather doubtful one, as it may consist rather in the elaboration of a self-image than in noting facts about oneself. More commonly, one simply has reflexive consciousness of what one is doing – in my case, now, sitting and typing this post and, usually, I am aware of it, without actually thinking about it.. It goes without saying, that we see rational, intelligent action in others, too – “He was running to catch the bus” ; here, we see intelligence in action, something that completely stumped Descartes.

If the principle of human rational life in me is a soul (which perhaps can survive me, perhaps again animate me) that is not what I mean by “me.” Nor is it what I am. I am a living, human body and I shall exist only as long as that exists. If people find this idea shocking, they only betray how deeply infected by dualism they are. St Thomas teaches the same (Summa Ia q 75:4) and the Ecumenical Council of Vienne (1311-12) condemns as heresy the denial that the rational or intellectual soul is the form of the human body, of itself and essentially.

Richard Fitzgibbons:

Do not be so quick to diagnose Kye Allums. One of the four diagnostic criteria that must be present for GID is, "D. The disturbance causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." Feeling that you are a man in a woman's body is not Gender Identity Disorder. Wanting gender reassignment surgery (and we have no idea whether Kye Allums does) is not Gender Identity Disorder. "Clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" because you feel you are a man in a woman's body or vice-versa is a psychiatric disorder. Feeling you are a man in a woman's body or vice versa is not a psychiatric disorder.

David:

Candidates for SRS may believe that they are trapped in the bodies of the wrong sex and therefore desire or, more accurately, demand SRS; however, this belief is generated by a disordered perception of self. Such a fixed, irrational belief is appropriately described as a delusion. SRS, therefore, is a “category mistake”—it offers a surgical solution for psychological problems such as a failure to accept the goodness of one’s masculinity or femininity, lack of secure attachment relationships in childhood with same-sex peers or a parent, a poor body image, self-rejection, untreated gender identity disorder, addiction to masturbation and fantasy, , excessive anger, and severe psychopathology in a parent. Fitzgibbons, R., et al., The Psychopathology of “Sex Reassignment” Surgery Assessing Its Medical, Psychological, and Ethical Appropriateness, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.1 (Spring 2009): 109–137.

Dr. Fitzgibbons,

My point was simply that an adult who is not experiencing "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning" does not fit the diagnostic criteria for Gender Identity Disorder as defined by the DSM IV. Anthony Esolen said of Kye Allum, "The girl needs psychiatric help." However if Allum is not experiencing "clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning," he does not have a psychiatric disorder.

I lean toward not objecting to SRS, but I haven't given the matter sufficient thought to say I favor or oppose it. I do wonder, though, if it isn't just an extreme example of cosmetic surgery. A man with an enormous and grotesque nose who undergoes rhinoplasty and turns out to be handsome is still "genetically" ugly, and a woman with overly large breasts and undergoes breast-reduction surgery is still "genetically" a woman with overly large breasts. We don't characterize their new appearance as a "lie" and insist they be treated as their less attractive, pre-surgical selves. I just saw a news report on children who are teased and bullied for protruding ears, and if I had such a child, I wouldn't think it wrong to let him or her have plastic surgery instead of insisting it was wrong not to go through life one's God-given ears.

If feeling oneself to be mentally one gender and physically another is a problem, I wonder if sexism is not part of the cause. Aside from the obvious physical differences—which need not be apparent at all except when people are naked—men and women are not intrinsically all that different. Also, a man who dresses even vaguely like a woman is much more of an oddity than a woman who wears a t-shirt and jeans. Gender is, it seems to me, very much a cultural construct. Girls and boys are trained from birth to act in certain ways that have little to do with their biological makeup and a great deal to do with how society things boys *should* act and girls *should* act.

@David Nickol, re "men and women are not intrinsically all that different. . . Gender is, it seems to me, very much a cultural construct."

Of course, that is, at bottom, the whole question under discussion here. But what if it isn't just a question of merely-physical differences, such as who can lift more weight, or run faster, or throw a ball farther? What if it really makes a difference who has the babies? Who does the begetting, and who does the bearing? Which, of course, involves all those 'surface' differences like penis/vagina-uterus, egg/sperm, testes/ovaries, XX/XY, estrogen/testosterone, etc, but (at least it seems to me) on a deeper, more intrinsic level than mere physical accidents. . .

David,

In order to understand the conflicts that interfere with a child’s identifying with and embracing the goodness of his masculinity or her femininity I’d recommend Zucker and Bradley’s Gender Identity Disorder and this chapter on our child website, www.childhealing.com/articles/genderidentitydisorder.php .

The Moz wrote:

"I challenge any scientist to prove the existence of even one sample of a human body comprised of cells containing the XY chromosome in the brain and XX chromosomes in any part of the body! Seriously, just one sample."

Very well :

Transplanted human bone marrow cells generate new brain cells by Crain BJ, Tran SD, Mezey E. in J Neurol Sci. 2005 Jun 15;233(1-2):121-3 :

This proves that XY stem cells from a donor can generate new XY brain cells in an otherwise XX patient.

Or this:

Bone marrow-derived cells from male donors can compose endometrial glands in female transplant recipients by Ikoma et al in Am J Obstet Gynecol. 2009 Dec;201(6):608.e1-8 :

Even ovaries can become XY.

But chromosomes have little do to with somatic sex.

"The fetal brain develops during the intrauterine period in the male direction through a direct action of testosterone on the developing nerve cells, or in the female direction through the absence of this hormone surge. In this way, our
gender identity (the conviction of belonging to the male or female gender) and sexual orientation are programmed or organized into our brain structures when we are still in the womb. However, since sexual differentiation of the genitals takes place in the first two months of pregnancy and sexual differentiation of the brain starts in the second half of pregnancy, these two processes can be influenced independently, which may result in extreme cases in trans-sexuality. This also means that in the event of ambiguous sex at birth, the degree of masculinization of the genitals may not reflect the degree of masculinization of the brain. There is no indication that social environment after birth has an effect on gender identity or sexual orientation." -- J Neurol Sci. 2005 Jun 15;233(1-2):121-3 :

"A 46,XY mother who developed as a normal woman underwent spontaneous puberty, reached menarche, menstruated regularly, experienced two unassisted pregnancies, and gave birth to a 46,XY daughter with complete gonadal dysgenesis." -- J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2008 Jan;93(1):182-9


I can understand the scientific ignorance shown here. This issue is not well taught at schools - and teaching it is strongly opposed by some conservative religious groups as "contrary to social values". It is perfectly understandable that many people are clueless about biology - especially Humanities professors, not known for their Scientific acumen.

What I cannot understand, nor condone, is the sheer malice, the spite, the bigotry and hatred that results. The condemning of people born with such anatomical problems as "Insane...Perverted...Freaks.. Paedophiles...Evil" by the proudly ignorant.

Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons:

From that article:

"Dr. George Rekers at the University of S. Carolina Medical Schools studied 70 boys who were given thorough medical and psychological evaluations including chromosome analysis. No chromosomal abnormalities were found. (Rekers G, et al. 1979. Genetic and physical studies of male children with psychological gender disturbances, Psychological Medicine 9: 373-375.)"

Remember George Rekers? The Quack who was caught hiring a Rentboy to "Lift his luggage"?

He used "Operant Conditioning" - beatings and rewards - to try to "cure" the problem of male-appearing children with anatomically female brains. Many suicided as the result.

Even NARTH has disowned him. Yet you still quote him as a reliable source, as his views support your religious beliefs.

Zucker's therapy doesn't work. Even he admits that now, the records are conclusive, and the evidence of a biological cause is overwhelming. At best, he claims a reduction in Transsexuality from 30% to 20% in children not meeting the diagnostic criteria. In children that do, there's no difference.

Some of the evidence that you may have overlooked, or just aren't aware of:

Male-to-female transsexuals show sex-atypical hypothalamus activation when smelling odorous steroids. by Berglund et al Cerebral Cortex 2008 18(8):1900-1908;
...the data implicate that transsexuality may be associated with sex-atypical physiological responses in specific hypothalamic circuits, possibly as a consequence of a variant neuronal differentiation.

Male–to–female transsexuals have female neuron numbers in a limbic nucleus. Kruiver et al J Clin Endocrinol Metab (2000) 85:2034–2041
The present findings of somatostatin neuronal sex differences in the BSTc and its sex reversal in the transsexual brain clearly support the paradigm that in transsexuals sexual differentiation of the brain and genitals may go into opposite directions and point to a neurobiological basis of gender identity disorder.

Sexual differentiation of the human brain: relevance for gender identity, transsexualism and sexual orientation. Swaab Gynecol Endocrinol (2004) 19:301–312.
Solid evidence for the importance of postnatal social factors is lacking. In the human brain, structural diferences have been described that seem to be related to gender identity and sexual orientation.

A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality. by Zhou et al Nature (1995) 378:68–70.
Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones

A sex difference in the hypothalamic uncinate nucleus: relationship to gender identity. by Garcia-Falgueras et al Brain. 2008 Dec;131(Pt 12):3132-46.
We propose that the sex reversal of the INAH3 in transsexual people is at least partly a marker of an early atypical sexual differentiation of the brain and that the changes in INAH3 and the BSTc may belong to a complex network that may structurally and functionally be related to gender identity.

White matter microstructure in female to male transsexuals before cross-sex hormonal treatment. A diffusion tensor imaging study. - Rametti et al, J Psychiatr Res. 2010 Jun 8.
CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that the white matter microstructure pattern in untreated FtM transsexuals is closer to the pattern of subjects who share their gender identity (males) than those who share their biological sex (females). Our results provide evidence for an inherent difference in the brain structure of FtM transsexuals.

Regional cerebral blood flow changes in female to male gender identity disorder. - Tanaka et al, Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2010 Apr 1;64(2):157-61.
RESULTS: GID subjects had a significant decrease in rCBF in the left anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and a significant increase in the right insula compared to control subjects.
CONCLUSIONS: The ACC and insula are regions that have been noted as being related to human sexual behavior and consciousness. From these findings, useful insights into the biological basis of GID were suggested.

...to name but a few of the thousands of papers on the sibject.

Clinical Implications of the Organizational and Activational Effects of Hormones M.Diamond Hormones and Behavior 55 (2009) 621–632
The organization-activation theory posits that the nervous system of a developing fetus responds to prenatal androgens so that, at a postnatal time, it will determine how sexual behavior is manifest. ... The preponderance of evidence seems to indicate that the theory of organization-activation for the development of sexual behavior is certain for non-human mammals and almost certain for humans.

To be "certain" would require inhuman experimentation using hormone manipulation on unborn children, to create various forms of Transsexuality and Intersex conditions. We can do that reliably on animals, but ethical considerations prohibit it on babies - to state the obvious.

Your website makes a number of claims - widely-believed and accepted ones in the past - about the "causes" of Transsexuality. But there's no actual evidence that these conjectures are true, is there?

I realise that your fervent Catholic beliefs lead you into certain conflicts with scientific evidence when it comes to biology, much as the SSPX has problems with Heliocentricism. However, as a highly moral, Christian, and ethical practioner of the healing arts, may I ask you to at least look at the evidence? I know you want to help children, your intentions are impeccable and you've done much good.

O wpuld recommend the presentation to the 2009 American Psychiatric Association Annual Conference:

S10. The Neurobiological Evidence for Transgenderism
1. Brain Gender Identity Prof. Sidney W. Ecker, M.D.
2. Transsexuality as an Intersex Condition Prof Milton Diamond, Ph.D.

David Nickol wrote:

"I lean toward not objecting to SRS, but I haven't given the matter sufficient thought to say I favor or oppose it. I do wonder, though, if it isn't just an extreme example of cosmetic surgery. "

It doesn't appear so: certainly the AMA even passed resolution 122 that specifically repudiated such views, based on objective data:

"Whereas, Health experts in GID, including WPATH, have rejected the myth that such treatments are “cosmetic” or “experimental” and have recognized that these treatments can provide safe and effective treatment for a serious health condition;"

We have "Nature's Experiments" - people who change sex from a variety of natural causes, to guide us. See http://www.usrf.org/news/010308-guevedoces.html

Unfortunately, the existence of such people directly contradicts Catholic religious belief (much as did Heliocentricism), so there are certain problems there.

Not all those who change are comfortable with that. But some are - it depends entirely on their neuro-anatomy. For a case where the change was unwelcome, see http://home.vicnet.net.au/%7Eaissg/2010_FamCA_237.pdf

For those with XY chromsomes and cloacal extrophy, it has been the practice in the past to surgically assign them as female - it's far easier, surgically. But as this condition (unlike 5ARD) does not involve a hormonal glitch in the womb, the rate of feminine gender identity was no higher than in the general 46XY popilation - about 1 in 3000. So the results were catastrophic.

Discordant Sexual Identity in Some Genetic Males with Cloacal Exstrophy Assigned to Female Sex at Birth by Reiner and Gearhart, N Engl J Med. 2004 January 22; 350(4): 333–341.

When a hormonal glitch does occur, then we have to wait till the child tells us what sex they are - MRI and PET scans show promise, but gender identity crystallises long before these relatively cride imaging techniques can detect the anatomical differences. Brain Autopsies are definitive, even at age 26 weeks after conception, but there's obvious disadvantages in using this as a diagnostic technique, as it requires the patient to be deceased first.

I can't pretend to objectivity here: I had GID from early childhood. I also have 3BHDD, one of the syndromes that can cause a "natural sex change". So I got a miraculous cure for it, though rather later than I would have preferred.

Zoe Brain,

Thanks for providing in detail the science behind what's obvious to anyone who has actually spent time in earnest talking to people with these kinds of conditions.

Zoe Brian and Michael,

SRS does not accomplish what it claims to accomplish. It does not change a person’s sex; therefore, it provides no true benefit. SRS is a “permanent,” effectively unchangeable, and often unsatisfying surgical attempt to change what may be only a temporary (i.e., psychotherapeutically changeable) psychological/psychiatric condition.