Transgender Surgery and Treatment Q & A

T H on Friday, Jun 12, 2015 7:45 PM (EDT) wrote:

"I don’t know, but it seems that people with a deep-seated feeling of discomfort in their body is a fairly new phenomenon….Or was it just kept hidden in some way. Isn’t psychological-help helpful?"


T H, this phenomenon is not "new;" there are accounts of people preferring to adopt the clothing and roles of the opposite gender throughout history. The NUMBERS, perhaps, are new, and this may reflect the growing confusion our dominant culture currently inculcates everyone with, the notion that "there's no such thing as truth;" that "truth is what you say it is;" "what's true for you," etc. Finally, what IS new is the ability and techniques to alter a person's body significantly to be able to claim that they have had a "sex change," although when you look at the actual results of these surgeries (and, for the record, it always takes multiple surgeries, not just one), I expect any clear-eyed person would have to admit that in fact, post-surgical "transgendered" people have not, in fact, managed to change their sex; they've only done a more complicated, more dangerous, and irreversible version of what the historical cases did in adopting the clothing and other outward trappings of the opposite sex.

This is, according to Walt Heyer, an author who underwent "sex change" and lived as a woman for 8 years before realizing he'd made a terrible, terrible mistake, one of the most painful realizations that he had to come to terms with: the fact that, after ALL the hormones and surgeries and the great discomfort and disruption to his (and all his loved ones') lives, in fact he still was NOT a woman. He was only a kind of poor substitute, a "faux" woman. The sad (for him, at the time) truth was that, no matter how he altered his body, he would never actually be a woman. It may be this painful realization (among others) that leads to the huge upswing in post-surgical transgender suicides about 8 to 10 years after the surgeries.

As to your question regarding whether psychological help is helpful, indeed it certainly can be. With children, in fact, the vast majority of children who come to the attention of someone with "gender confusion" or potential "gender identity disorder" (which we're not going to be able to "officially" call that anymore. . . ) will simply grow out of it with time and a reasonable social environment. In other words, as children are growing, it is really NOT that big a deal if they express something along the lines of "I wish I was a boy" (or girl, whatever the other gender is). Often the "problem" is as simple as finding out what the wish is really about (maybe his little sister gets all the attention? maybe a little girl really wants to play baseball but someone has given her the impression that that is not an appropriate activity for a girl? maybe the little boy wants to play the oboe but his father--or his culture in general--sends the message that he has to play a more "masculine" instrument because "oboes are for girls"--or even that he can't be a musician at all because that's not manly? etc.).

With teens and adults who experience this disorder (and I'm going to continue to call it a disorder, since until extremely recently, everybody agreed it was, and it is clearly disordered to wish that healthy parts of your body should be surgically removed), again, there are track records of successful therapeutic treatments. The problem is that, going the way of homosexuality in the '70's, the politically-correct "thought police" are now telling us we can't call it a disorder, which means it can't be ethically TREATED by psychologists who otherwise would like to help. They'll have to do some contortions to give "acceptable" diagnoses and pursue treatments.  But some, still driven by the deep desire to help people, and courageous enough to go against the flow, will do so, even as they continue to assist people with SSA to come to terms with their sexuality in healthy and constructive ways.

So yes, various forms of therapy CAN help. The question is only whether they will be ALLOWED to help (or just drowned out by the "celebrations" of high-profile mutilations and the constant drone of shoutings-down as "bigoted" and "phobic" of anyone who tries to offer such help), and how much trouble anybody TRYING to help is going to be given when they do try to help (currently, there are people trying to pass laws to prevent anyone from trying to help people with SSA who would like help with that; this may be
next on the docket).


D on Thursday, Jun 11, 2015 2:20 PM (EDT) wrote:

"I saw a TV show featuring a beautiful woman—to all appearances—whose
periods had not started when she went to college. Genetic testing showed she
was actually XY—the male genotype.

According to Texas law (where she resided) she is legally a man.

What is she? Man or woman?

There was a man who served as a man in the armed services. A CT scan showed
uterus and non-functioning ovaries in his abdomen.

Is he a man or a woman?

These anomalies might be the result of a world spoiled by centuries of sin,
but do show that there are no simplistic attitudes that cover all bases."


Yes, there are cases of developmental problems that do result in either
ambiguous genitalia, or external genitalia that do not match internal sex
organs, or other physically confusing disorders of development. However,
these are EXTREMELY RARE. In these cases, we do need to carefully treat each
case as a precious individual and see what the reality of existence is for
each of them. Because these cases ARE extremely rare, that's really not much
of an issue (although I'm sure the popular media are busily at work finding
every possible angle and exploiting it to the full, thereby making it seem
like "intersex" people are just milling about everywhere these days. . . ).

In the Jenner case, there is NO question that Bruce Jenner was born as a
normally-developed male; his ability to engender children demonstrates that;
so in this case, we are looking at someone who is NOT experiencing anything
like what you are referring to, but only a psychological "mis-fit" between
their physical body (normally developed) and their desire to adopt the
appearance and role of the opposite sex. As others have already pointed out,
psychological professionals still are directed by the DSM to believe that,
if someone wants their normally-developed and -functioning legs cut off
because they desire the identity of an amputee, that is a disorder; it is
only when someone wants their normally-developed and -functioning sex organs
amputated that we suddenly need to treat their pathology as some kind of
"beautiful" and "courageous" expression of self. Something is rotten in the
state of APA. . .


Note:  Questions and my answers were originally posted in the comments section from:
 http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/daughter-of-sex-change-man-warns-jenners-children-of-pain-mourning-loss-ahe/

Papa Knows Best

The Pope recently recommended that computers be kept only in the public areas of the home:

Pope Francis Recommends Computers Out of Bedrooms

 To add my support to this, I will only add this:

it is clearly established that the presence of televisions, computers, or telephones IN A CHILD'S BEDROOM is associated with several poor outcomes, including decreased success in school, early sexual activity, and involvement with crime and drugs.  All electronic gadgetry, therefore, is best kept to the public areas of the home, to avoid the temptations associated with private interaction with the unreal world accessed thereby.

To prevent the sad state of affairs the Pope describes, where the semblance of a family meal is going on, but in fact, individuals are disengaged from the real people in their presence and pulled into the unreal (or at least, vastly less real) interactions provided by their phones/tablets/electronic-distraction-devices-of-choice, I recommend taking these time-and-attention-suckers up when people arrive home for the day, turning them OFF, and putting them somewhere out of reach until the next day so that you can TRULY interact with those most precious to you, without damaging distractions. 

If the thought of doing that makes you panic, you have just diagnosed yourself with an addiction.  Get the help you need to regain your health.  Best wishes!

 

Quiet; Rest

Body, psyche, and spirit all need QUIET TIME.  Rest is not just "a nice thing to have," it is required for health. 

"Be still, and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10


Sharing more thoughts on this enormously important, and all-too-often-utterly-ignored, topic:

Michelle Arnold "The Sound of Silence"

With Broom and Cross; For Body and Spirit, Active = Alive!

This little gem of thought (Randall Smith's entire post) is both beautiful and deeply true:

 The Active and Contemplative Life

St. Martin de Porres,
with broom and cross

"Greek philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle seem to have considered
the contemplative life to be the highest human activity – the activity
by which the human person brings his or her mind into contact with the
highest principle of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. And yet, among such
Greek thinkers, the life of contemplation stood in stark contrast to the
life of servile labor. In the world of Plato and Aristotle, servants
worked, so that an elite few could live the “life of the mind” and spend
their time contemplating the highest things."

This particularly strikes me. It seems our culture now rejects BOTH of these activities. We seem, as a society, to want NEITHER ora (prayer) NOR labora (work). Our strongest desire seems to be to have enough money so that we can have the time and unlimited resources to sit around hypnotized by somebody else's notion of what we should consume on an electronic screen (Christian translation: we are being driven by--i.e., are slaves to--greed and sloth).

As a result of our avoidance of both meaningful contemplation (of anything) and meaningful work (engagement with the serving of others), we have either no notion of Truth, Goodness, or Beauty whatsoever, or a completely skewed notion of these things, increasingly deformed by the culture's deformed notion of them: that Truth is relative (which really means it is a phantom, it does not exist); that Goodness simply means not actively causing physical harm to another person (unless that person is currently living inside another's womb, in which case it's okay since you can't see them easily), which is of course not a positive notion, but simply a "definition" by exclusion (we don't know what it IS, but we think we know at least one thing it is NOT); that Beauty, like Truth, is whatever you think it is, which mostly translates into whatever the "movers and shakers" think it is, which mostly is a pathologically deformed idea (stemming from the dissolution of Truth) that results in things like visual art that is purposefully ugly/dis-ordered/broken/literally made of excrement but called beautiful, and standards of female beauty that overtly and obviously reflect states of physical illness (a post-pubertal human female 6 feet tall who purposefully maintains her weight at less than 120 pounds is, without question, endangering her health).

As long as we passively consume our culture's directions to allow ourselves to be driven by greed and sloth (we call it "The American Dream," God help us); as long as we obey our culture's ceaseless cry to stay distracted and not contemplate or meaningfully dwell upon or even attempt more than a soundbite's worth of rational thought, we continue to choose the "path of pain," to choose pathology, to choose illness, indeed (Christian translation) to CHOOSE DEATH, for our whole selves (body, psyche, and spirit).

Happy thoughts today. . . (not).  Sorry.

Movement for Your Whole Self

"Where your body goes, your mind will follow."  I've heard more than one evangelical preacher use this sound bite to support their call to take a supplicatory position while praying--either on your knees, or even better, face down on the floor.  And they're right; although God can certainly "hear you," no matter what position you may be in, it is a distinctly different experience to pray on your knees, or to fully prostrate yourself before God.  That is because, to reprise a theme, you ARE your body, and what you do with your body affects your thoughts, feelings, and sense of self. 

And vice versa:

http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/pray-and-workout-strengthening-soul-and-body/

Personally, I love going for a walk and praying the rosary.  I get fresh air, sunlight, and bird song; the breeze in the trees, the artwork of the Lord, unexpected encounters with my fellow creatures; and meditative MOVEMENT for my body, psyche, and spirit.  All parts of you need to MOVE to be healthy.  Sitting on your backside, passively taking in somebody else's notion of what you should be consuming from a screen, atrophies your body, stultifies your psyche, and quenches your spirit.  A walk in God's creation, or a dance to uplifting music offered up with--or AS--a prayer, whether of gratitude, joy, or even pain and sorrow, moves all of you, and most importantly, moves you toward Life.  (Choose Life!)

Reconciling With Our Bodies

So many people in our modern culture view their bodies as if they are some kind of vehicle that they, the "real person," ride around in.  You probably have that habitual view, too.  But you know that this view is mistaken, when somebody injures or against your will grabs hold of your body, and you say, "Hey, you hurt ME," or "Let go of ME."  Your body IS you.  Your psyche IS you.  Your spirit IS you.  As we are made in the three-person image of God, so we, too, are a "mini trinity."  Because of this, we can learn a great deal about our SELVES from our bodies. 

Our Walking Dead Culture, by Emily Stimpson (from Aleteia)

Nutrition for the Psyche: What to Feed Your Mind

All parts of you need to be properly nourished; you quite literally "are what you eat"--you are built and re-built continually, out of what you consume--not just your body, but your psyche and your spirit.  Here's some excellent advice on what to feed your mind:

http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/why-families-should-promote-classics/