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Just wanted to thank you for your interview with Moises. What a great guy! Living so humbly, picking moss and mushrooms in the forest. . . it's hard to imagine, but it's strikingly close to the land, much more Northwestern and outdoorsy than are most Northwesterners. I am truly glad to know there are people out there like him, making a decent living in such a legitimate, sustainable way. It ought to be legal. Thank you for telling us about yourself, Moises, and congratulations on passing your GED!

posted 4 years, 6 months ago
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Hey Jack, I totally agree with what you say here. It may well be primarily a social problem. Internalized racism, hatred of one's self because of what society says about one's race, is a great analogy. However, if a black man wanted to become white, to have skin-replacement surgery because he'd internalized society's prejudices against him. . . well, we'd definitely try to talk him out of it, wouldn't we? It'd be a terribly misguided decision; it'd be caving in to an internalized evil, and it wouldn't, ultimately, fix the real problem.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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What do you mean by "a happier more productive life"? You're certainly right that "A CERTIFIED MENTAL HEALTH PSYCHOLOGIST" knows more about this than I do, though I certainly would not make such a decision based merely on the approval of a psychologist.

Regardless, I'm not talking about whether or not we accept a transgender or transsexual person, or whether or not our society allows those who want this surgery to have it. I am questioning the reality of the promised "happier more productive life." It seems like a sad, even a tragically misguided decision to me, and I've stated my reasons why.

I sincerely hope that sadness and tragedy will not be the end reached by you and your partner.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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Jack, I totally agree with you in principle, and I am glad to know that your partner's sex change is beneficial to your relationship. I hope it will also be good for his other relationships. In my experience with transsexual people, that isn't usually the case.

What I heard Renee say was that her surgery pushed her wife away ("she's not a lesbian"), estranged her from her daughter ("she thought it was incestuous"), and has utterly confused her son ("he still calls me dad"). Renee might be content with where she stands with them now, but it certainly doesn't sound like she made the best choice for them to me. Of course it isn't for me to judge, and it shouldn't be. At this point I'm not advocating for a legal ban on sex changes. I am just asking about their efficacy and their consequences.

You're right that being able to love yourself helps you to love other people. It also works reversed, though; actively loving other people will help you to love yourself. In Renee's case, staying a husband and father would have been an act of love towards her family. Service creates self-esteem. Using what you have to offer as you are, as a biological man or woman, will help you begin to love yourself -- without undergoing drastic, irreversible surgery. I think that's what God wants for us, since you asked.

As for Scott's question ("What underlying issues?" &c.), I can't offer a broad, general psychiatric diagnosis for everyone who seeks sex change surgery. I'm not qualified to speculate too deeply about that. I'm simply saying that, in my experience with transsexual people, the self-loathing that leads them to their surgeries is commonly rooted in something other than their actual, biological sex. It might in fact come from what society says about gender; society might tell you you're too plain to be a woman, or too graceful to be a man, and that might understandably torture you. That doesn't mean it's true, though, and giving in, relinquishing your biological identity, might only make your problems worse.

Regarding my boob job analogy, Scott, I think you're underestimating the reasons women surgically alter their breasts. "Clearly, people don't undergo surgery because it is easy." I agree with you, however, that there is a difference of degree between breast augmentation and sex change. There is a difference of degree; I'm not sure it's a difference of kind. I think they may both have their roots in the same sort of self-loathing, where sex and gender are confused in the mix. In my experience, surgery is not a good solution to either problem.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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"Clearly, people don't undergo surgery. . . for some need to reject who they are, or their lives."

Sure they do! Not just transsexuals, either; cosmetics are all about augmenting or transforming identity, whether it's as subtle as piercing your ear, or as drastic as getting a face lift. People don't always "mentally need" these things, but they may sincerely think they do. An insecure 18 year old, growing up in Beverly Hills, may "mentally" believe she needs breast enhancement surgery. . . however most of us would agree that bigger boobs wouldn't really solve her problems. In fact, they'd only lead her farther into an unhealthy delusion. She'd be reinforcing the belief that worth and attractiveness are defined by superficial, hypersexualized appearances. "The surgery isn't harming other people," but it aggravates the underlying issues. So, in answer to your question, there's a good reason to say no.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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I am an open-minded, liberal Christian. This is a difficult issue for me, as my ideals clash with my personal experience. It is good, I believe, to challenge social gender constructs; and in many ways it's great that science can overcome biological destiny. We would not tell a person living with a debilitating disease that they should just buck up, that God had designed them that way for a purpose -- if our society had the means to heal them. However, the transexual people I've known all seem to have fastened onto the idea of sex change for unfortunate, highly problematic reasons.

One woman I knew, who became a man, despised her body with an ascetic furvor. Before finally cutting them off, she bound her breasts so tight against her chest that it interfered with her breathing. She utterly neglected personal hygiene, even though she was a high school teacher. Most worryingly, she had disturbing, false expectations about what life would be like as a man. She once revealed to a classroom that she thought it was normal teenage behavior for boys to masturbate in groups. Clearly this was a troubled person, but I don't think undergoing a sex change really spoke to the root of her (now his) problems.

Today's speaker, Renee, gave an illustration of another concern I have with transexual surgery. She was a husband and a father, and as such she ought to have put the needs of her wife and her children first. Marriage requires fidelity, no matter how contrary one's personal desires may be. You could be an accountant who's always dreamed of being an airplane pilot; if you're married and it would cost your family too much to send you back to flight school, you stay an accountant. Renee's responsibility as husband was to love her wife self-sacrificially, to give everything for her, even to die for her if need be (as Christ died for the church). Her responsibility to her children was to provide a positive example of what it means to be a good man. Being true to yourself, despite social gender constructs, is one thing; being selfish despite the pledge of love and trust between you and your family is another.

We should definitely accept people for who they are. I would not tell a gay man to deny that he was attracted to other men; that would be encouraging him to lie. However, people should accept themselves for who they are, too. If you are a wife and a mother, even if you've recently concluded that you're gay, that is who you are, and you need to live with it. Those are deep commitments. If you're a boy who longs for tenderness and femininity, that's who you are. It will be hard for you to conform, and it's really, really sad if your community rejects you, but that doesn't mean you should reject yourself, reject your name, and undergo surgery to become somebody else.

posted 4 years, 7 months ago
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