Catholic deception

An article on a site called Catholic Exchange has been getting a lot of attention lately, mostly, it seems, from the people it targets. The article was published to try to keep gender identity and expression out of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, to support a non-inclusive ENDA. Imagine—a Catholic article that does not take issue with ENDA for lesbians and gays but goes straight at trans people.

The article is so full of misinformation and bad science that it's hard to know where to start. Several people in the comments attempted to set the record straight, only to have the editor of the article come back with even more bullshit. Listening is clearly not her strong suit.

Such persons [transsexuals,etc.] deceive themselves, deceive others, and are being deceived by mental health professionals and surgeons. Well, no. It wasn't my therapist who told me I was trans. Neither was it the assessing physician. It was me. I felt it in my heart, and it was incumbent on me to demonstrate how I felt to them. They both came to agree with me, but they never told me what I was.

The public is being deceived by the media and activists into believing that so-called 'transsexuals' were born with biological problems that are remedied by surgery and that it is possible to change your sex. The media and activists? How about research scientists and mental health professionals? They are the ones doing the research, research that more and more undercuts the premises of the article.

No one can change sex; it is written in DNA on every cell of our bodies. So to the author, apparently, women with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome must be men, due to their XY chromosomes. Yet they are women, not men. And what about all the other karyotypes, including mosaic types in which a person has both XX and XY chromosomes? The article is silent on anything that cannot be forced into black and white categories.

A clearly male person presents himself in public as a woman. He has had surgery and hormone treatments to perfect his impersonation and he demands that we pretend this makes him a woman. Clearly male person? For one thing, no sane male person would ever undergo hormone therapy and genital surgery. Anyone who does so is clearly female. The author, however, seems to be a lookist. Given her assertion here, she must have a problem with women-born-female-bodied who have typically male features and men-born-male-bodied who have typically female features.

The circle of deception created by this "gender ideology" begins with those who want to be the other sex deceiving themselves. I can't speak for others, but I can certainly speak for myself. The only self-deception I engaged in was to convince myself that I was male because of the body I had. I kept that up for 50 years. Coming to terms with being female was the opposite of self-deception. Jesus said, "By their fruits shall you know them." My life since coming to terms with my gender issues has been amazingly positive and free from the self-medication, self-indulgence, and confusion that were the hallmark of my life as a male.

As children they may have been wounded, traumatized, abused, or rejected. They fell into envy and fantasy, imagining "If I were the other sex, I would be safe, loved, valued." This envy grew into an obsession. There's fantasy here, but it's the author's. This certainly doesn't describe my life. Upon what was such an assertion based?

While those applying for surgery may insist that they have the brain or soul of the other sex, they really don’t know what it means to be the other sex. Clearly the author needs to meet me, and several of my friends. She seems to have missed us.

While persons who want to be the other sex desperately want to believe that they were born with this problem, there is no evidence for this. Except that there is, and a growing body of evidence at that.

The article goes on from there into the autogynephilia fantasy, complete with quotes from the thoroughly discredited Anne Lawrence and J. Michael Bailey. It seems the author chose not to look at the real science but instead preferred quackery that supported her quack arguments. It gets worse when the author advocates so-called reparative therapy, as cruel a deception as could be devised.

Their words distort and deceive. I know whose words are distorting and deceiving here. This article assumed its conclusion and cited only those references that would support its position. That is not science. That is propaganda, pure and simple.

In my life, I deceive no one, and have no wish to deceive anyone. I wish only to be as much myself as possible. That meant that I made a social transition, living as a female all the time for more than a year now. That's not deception. It's just me. It will be me for the rest of my life. It meant that I began hormone therapy, which certainly has the effect of feminizing my body (somewhat), but more importantly gives my brain the right chemical balance for the first time in my life. Anecdotal to be sure, but I can show the author and editor the crutches I have left behind as I finally learned to walk proudly. And finally, I will have genital surgery in order to bring my body in line with the image I have had of myself since I was a child. Calling it mutilation doesn't make it so, especially not when the result will be beautiful.

I will never pretend I was born female-bodied. If you ask me, politely, I will tell you my story. I have nothing to be ashamed of, and indeed a lot to be proud of. It's sad that the Catholic author and editor, members of the church in which I grew up, will stoop to such deception. You always hope that Christians will be charitable, compassionate, and above all truthful.