I haven't thrown a rock at any hornets' nests lately, so be forewarned.
I'm sure you have read, in various publications, about dioceses initiating what seem like draconian polices regarding gender in diocesan high schools. I'm just going to be talking about my own diocese. We're famous, we made the lead article on the NCR site this week:
I am going to limit my post to discussion of the TQ+ part of LGBTQ+ . I feel that gay and lesbian issues should not be lumped in with transgender and gender dysphoria, that they are a separate subject.
This is the part where I am supposed to wring my hands and say that our archbishop is a reactionary out-of-touch culture warrior. Except that isn't true. I have met him on many occasions, and he is a kind, gracious, and down to earth person, and is not an ideologue. I happen to think he has some legitimate concerns, and I am supportive of some of the proposed school policies. But not all of them, and not the way they would be enforced.
I am of the mind that so-called gender theory is about three-quarters nonsense (told you I was going to aim for the hornets' nest). The quarter that isn't nonsense is that there are actually intersex people in which gender and sex are biologically ambiguous. One example is the Olympic runner a few years back (Caster Semenya - Wikipedia) who had the external characteristics of female anatomy, but had male levels of testosterone. There are also people who have chromosomal abnormalities such as Turner's Syndrome or Klinefelter's Syndrome. The incidence of people with these biological abnormalities is about 1 in 3000, But for the rest of humanity, if sex and gender were Venn diagrams, they would pretty much be concentric with a little fuzzing out on the edges. They really are not two entirely separate things.
Science is cited as proof that gender theory is a proven fact. However psychology is what would be called a "soft" science. It has been wrong on a number of occasions. One of them is recovered memory therapy : (Recovered-memory therapy - Wikipedia) which had some disastrous results back in the 1980s and 1990s. Then there was the belief that sex offenders could be "cured" and returned to the environment in which the offenses occurred. Of course we know how that played out in the church and in society.
I think the reason for the new rules concerning gender dysphoria in the archdiocesan high schools is concern about social contagion. This article makes what seems like a well researched case that social contagion does happen: https://diannakenny.com.au/k-blog/itemlist/tag/gender%20dysphoria.html
"In this section, I review the evidence for social contagion among adolescents for three key psychopathologies that arise in adolescence (eating disorders, marijuana use and suicide) and compare the mechanisms of social contagion in these well documented areas with evidence for social contagion effects in gender dysphoria. "
i. Anorexia nervosa
A number of researchers have identified the central role of social contagion in the development and propagation of anorexia nervosa in adolescent girls (Allison, Warin, & Bastiampillai, 2014). Adolescence is a time in which the focus on oneself becomes intense, and for some, critical and unrelenting. The developing female body constitutes one of the main objects of scrutiny. When this scrutiny is compounded by the collective inspection of all of one’s body’s flaws, the peer group becomes a powerful crucible for both the development and maintenance of disordered eating... "
ii. Marijuana use among adolescents
"...Results showed that for every increase in marijuana use of 10 percent in adolescents in a close friend network increased the likelihood of marijuana use by two percent. An increase of 10% in usage in grade peers was associated with a 4.4 percent increase in individual use. Reporting a good relationship with one’s parents, living in a two-parent household and being religious were protective against marijuana uptake. When peer selection and environmental confounders were held constant, increases in close friend and classmate usage by 10 percent both resulted in a five percent increase in uptake in individuals within those networks."
iii. Suicide
"...Using the same data set as the study examining marijuana use but following up four waves of these participants into adulthood, Wave IV assessed suicidality in young adults aged 24-32. This study showed that holding all other psychological risks constant, those young people having a role model who attempted suicide were more than twice as likely to report suicidal ideation in the following 12 months. Participants who had a friend or family member commit suicide were 3.5 times more likely to attempt suicide themselves compared with those who had no close associate attempt or commit suicide in the same 12-month timeframe. These effects were enduring. Young adults who reported an attempted suicide of a role model were more than twice as likely to report a suicide attempt six years after the role model’s attempt compared with their otherwise similar peers. Attempting suicide in adolescence increased suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in young adulthood. Significant risk factors for this association included experiencing emotional abuse in childhood, a diagnosis of depression, and a significant other attempting suicide. Thus, suicide contagion appears to be a significant risk factor for suicide in young adulthood but contagion in this study did not require bounded social contexts."
iv. Gender dysphoria
"Commentators on the burgeoning incidence of young people claiming that they are transgender assert that peer contagion may underlie this ominous trend. However, it has rarely been systematically studied either theoretically or empirically. Given the strong evidence of peer contagion in suicide, substance abuse and eating disorders, especially among adolescents, the role of peer contagion in gender dysphoria demands urgent attention. "
"If we examine the gender dysphoria epidemic in social network terms, we see several features operating. It is an open-system network with nodes and ties expanding across the oceans to the US, UK, Asia, Europe, Scandinavia, and Australia. Most countries are reporting sharp increases in the number of people seeking services and treatment for gender dysphoria. Many are ramping up services and setting up new gender clinics to cope with demand. This network is highly centralised with only one voice – the transactivist lobby - being heard above the desperate whispers of terrified parents and horrified academics, doctors, psychologists and psychotherapists. Opinion leaders operating at the centre of these networks are very influential. The level of density in a network has two effects – firstly, it enhances the circulation of information between members and secondly, it blocks the introduction of dissenting ideas and evidence (Iyengar, Van den Bulte, & Valente, 2011). "
Here is a brief summary of the proposed student handbook rules put forth by the archdiocese. It should be noted that this handbook has not been finalized, and that there are proposed revisions in response to feedback from the community: Archdiocese of Omaha-Policy on Human Sexuality (School Students, Parents, and Guardians) PMF Rev. 6-22-22 (01486445).DOCX (htv-prod-media.s3.amazonaws.com)
"Students will conduct themselves in accord with their biological sex at all times publicly, at school, at school-sponsored activities and events, and when representing the school."
"Students will abide by the dress code and school uniform policy that corresponds with their biological sex...."
"...Students’ eligibility to participate in competitive or recreational athletics, and single-sex curricular and extracurricular activities, is based on the students’ biological sex."
"...A student’s access to facilities and overnight accommodations will correspond with the student’s biological sex."
"...Social media activity and other conduct by students shall be respectful of others and not promote, advocate, or endorse a view or conduct contrary to the Catholic Church’s teachings, including on human sexuality. Online activity or other conduct that bullies or degrades another is prohibited. A student who violates these standards may be disciplined, up to and including dismissal."
"...Each student will be addressed at all times by the student’s given name at birth, unless the student’s name has been subsequently and legally changed and provided the name change was not for the purpose of contravention of the child’s biological sex at birth. Each student shall be referred to with pronouns in accord with the student’s biological sex at birth...."
"...A fundamental tenet of Catholicism is that every human being has been created in the image and likeness of God and has inestimable value and dignity. No one should be an object of scorn, hatred, or violence for any reason. All students and families deserve interactions within Catholic school communities and parish communities that are marked by respect, charity, and the truth about human dignity and God’s love. An individual with gender dysphoria must be treated with compassion at all times. All individuals are children of God and entitled to dignity. Bullying or discrimination against students experiencing gender dysphoria is prohibited. If bullying or discrimination has occurred, students, parents, and school administration should refer to current school policies regarding bullying and harassment."
Whatever the merits of sexual reassignment when people become adults, I definitely think that it is very questionable when individuals are not yet adults.
ReplyDeleteI think the archdiocese should have adopted a policy saying that while they respect adults who have chosen sexual reassignment, they do not support sexual reassignment of children and adolescents. Therefore, parents who desire sexual reassignment for their children should find other educational institutions that may provide a more supportive environment. The following policies are in force to make it clear that support for sexual reassignment is not available in Catholic schools.
In some ways sexual reassignment is not new. The ancient world was full of eunuchs. I recently read where the angels in icons were modeled after Byzantine court eunuchs. Then we had castrati that sang liturgical music. How did the church deal with all of that? In the gospels we have a high-class eunuch accepting the Resurrection.
I have a lot more questions than answers on this one. I think the contagion theory is very plausible.
Jack I agree with you (and Jean) that the archdiocese worded it poorly and confusingly. I think the way you expressed it is better.
DeleteI am of the mind that so-called gender theory is about three-quarters nonsense (told you I was going to aim for the hornets' nest). The quarter that isn't nonsense is that there are actually intersex people in which gender and sex are biologically ambiguous.
DeleteAs I understand contemporary gender theory, it says that a person's biological sex (assigned at birth) is a biological fact (except in cases of genetic anomalies) but gender identity may be in conflict with his or her biological sex. That seems uncontroversial to me. However, it goes on to say if a person of male biological sex identifies as a woman, she is a woman, and if a person of female biological sex identifies as a man, he is a man. That is why the people interviewed by the loathsome Matt Walsh in his documentary "What Is a Woman?" had such a hard time answering the question. And that is why I have to part company with modern gender theory.
The problem as I see it is that gender dysphoria can be very real and very traumatic, and the way to deal with it may very well not be to force persons with gender dysphoria into conformity with their assigned biological sex. It is like requiring a depressed person to act happy all the time (in public) or a chronically anxious person to put on a facade of serenity. It is bound to be, in at least some cases, cruel. As I understand it, the weight of psychiatric and psychological opinion is that it's necessary to work with each person experiencing gender dysphoria on an individual basis. There is no one-size-fits-all therapy and certainly no "cure."
My advice would be to carefully consider not sending LGBTQ young people (or maybe anybody) to Catholic school.
An individual with gender dysphoria must be treated with compassion at all times.
It seems to me that to insist on gender conformity above all else is potentially cruel and harmful, so I see the policies advocated above as in conflict with this principle.
I probably have mentioned that in my (first) grade school, one punishment of misbehaving 7th- or 8th-grade boys was to dress them in girls' uniforms, put a bow in their hair, and have them sit on the girls' side of the classroom. At least the policies laid out above would have put a stop to that.
DeleteDavid , I agree with you that gender dysphoria can be very real and traumatic. What I can't get on board, with gender theory, is that a biological male who identifies as a woman actually is one (or vice versa).
DeleteThat is so weird to punish misbehaving boys by dressing them like girls. I'm pretty sure that misbehaving girls weren't punished by dressing them like boys. Sounds like the message would have been that to be a girl was somehow "less than". And if you don't want to be like *them*, you'd better toe the mark.
Unfortunately you are probably right that a young person with dysphoria shouldn't be sent to a Catholic school which has the aforementioned policies.
It should be noted that the policies only apply to the diocesan schools. There are schools which are run by religious orders which aren't under the archdiocesan umbrella and aren't bound by the policies.
Honestly, I don't think ANY Catholic kid should be sent to a school with exclusionary or repressive policies. These schools have sadly become elite private institutions where wealthy conservatives can send their little darlings to preserve their purity. My guess is that the impetus for rules about trans kids comes from parents on a huge fear trip than from any disruptive behavior by trans students or their families.
Delete
ReplyDeleteHas anyone here ever encountered a transgender person? I've met two, albeit briefly. Once I had to brief an Army executive in Washington regarding my optics manufacturing program. It went well. The executive seemed like a straight shooter. She also looked like a big guy (ex-tank commander) made up like a woman. Another I met before and after. M was taking piano lessons from a male teacher. She stopped for a year during her year working for the German government as an exchange engineer. When M returned she resumed lessons for a while. Her teacher now had a women's name, and looked like a big guy dressed as a woman. Still commuted on a motorcycle. I have no idea if, in either case, any surgery or hormone treatments were involved.
I have no personal psychological referents to judge these people.
I suppose the idea behind adolescent reassignment is to end up looking less like a big guy dressed up like a woman or vice versa.
I don't know what the scientific basis for this is. My concern is, if the diocese follows this policy, will it result in more suicides?
If these folk's internal gender is the result of some biological switch, this would seem to conflict with the other theory that gender roles are totally conditioned by social upbringing. Perhaps that's why some feminists are in opposition to accepting trans women as women.
One question I have about gender reassignment is how many end up unhappy after the transition? How many want to go back?
In 2018 there was an article in Atlantic Magazine which I thought was really good: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/07/when-a-child-says-shes-trans/561749/
DeleteIt wasn't one "side" or the other, but discussed a lot of the issues around transgender.
Yes, three.
DeleteOne was a college friend. She lived as a lesbian with a girlfriend for many years, but they parted when she started to transition about 20 years ago. He opted for no surgery, just hormones, and that's as far as it will go, given that he is nearly 70. He is now a retired forest ranger.
The other was a kid at The Boy's high school. Nice kid, good family, played in band, very talented musician, outgoing, hung out with The Boy's group of friends. Apparently, his dysphoria started at a young age. He was content with dressing in jeans and tshirts through school, but had a ponytail. Kids in marching and concert band all wore the same uniforms, so I never cottoned on until The Boy told me that senior year he had decided to transition to female.
Also had a student a few years before I retired, and honestly am not sure which way this person was transitioning or if he was just gender fluid. Male name but very androgynous. Very smart, good grades, outgoing. He was the DJ for the Motown party for Black History Month at the student center.
So this whole approach to trans people--that it is some form of social contagion, that they need rules to head off flamboyant behavior, that they will be disruptive and demand their own bathrooms or show up in drag queen attire--all of that strikes me as coming from a place of fear, denial, ignorance, and complete unwillingness to deal with people who do not fit some comfortable norm.
Transition is usually very slow, gradual, and, despite what you read in the paper, does not start before puberty, a move that is still controversial among therapists and doctors. Most trans people do not opt for genital surgery.
I have met, maybe, four people whom I knew were trans. They were adults. I called them by the name they introduced themselves by, and referred to them by the pronouns they preferred, if I knew what they were. That's just common courtesy. I would have done the same if they were teenagers.
DeleteNot willing to dismiss that there is a certain group think, having raised teenagers, and been one. We know that people are willing to believe things which aren't necessarily facts. Think Q-Anon.
It's a pain for schools to have to deal with restroom issues, and whether someone belongs on a girls or boys sports team.
Stanley, I have never met a trans person as far as I know. But I don’t get out much these days - we have been fairly isolated for years now, pretty much seeing only longtime friends.
DeleteI don’t understand the transgender phenomenon and can’t render an educated opinion on the subject.
Hello - I'm so grateful we're having this discussion. Katherine, I commend you for staking out a position in a public forum like this, as respectfully as you can, knowing that you might be inviting all sorts of blowback from idiots (and I'm not referring to any of our regulars here).
ReplyDeleteI'm also grateful to everyone else for treating the topic earnestly and seriously.
Just some random thoughts, in no particular order:
I'm with Jean that the school policy, in its current draft form as quoted above, doesn't strike the right notes. Although I do agree that biological males shouldn't compete against biological females in sporting events. At the very least, I'd make the last paragraph, with its statement of compassion and protection against bullying, the first paragraph - and the remainder of the policy should flow from those principles.
I'm with Jack in that I'm troubled by efforts to grant adolescents the same complete autonomy that adults have in reassigning gender.
I certainly agree with David that to force someone to be someone whom they believe they're not can be very stressful, perhaps to the point of occasional cruelty.
I'm glad to hear that the Archbishop of Omaha seems like a good guy. I'm supposing that this policy, as articulated in the post, didn't flow directly from his pen. Catholic schools typically are administered by a professional diocesan bureaucracy, advised by an advisory board consisting of parents, pastors, principals, teachers, et al. My supposition is that this policy document was prepared, reviewed, revised etc. by that bureaucracy and advisory board, as well as the archdiocese's legal team and - I hope! - psychological professionals. And I suppose, in creating this policy, they didn't start from scratch; they would have consulted existing policies, in their own schools and in other dioceses.
I'd like to think that a humane and spiritually generous policy could be put into effect which wouldn't be "one size fits all", but rather would allow a kid's parents and school administrators, in conjunction with a psychological professional, to assess the situation and tailor the school's solution individually. I think the vast majority of teachers, and also the majority of students, would be inclined to be sympathetic and supportive of children who are trying to work through dysphoria. Let's not suppress those holy instincts.
To David's recommendation: rather than sending away dysphoric students, let's consider sending away intolerant and hate-filled bullies and busybodies from our Catholic schools. And parishes. And other Catholic institutions. Or, at least, invite them to change.
Jim, I noticed that several of the dioceses came out with similar policies in the same time frame, so your comment about diocesan bureaucracies makes sense. There may be some type of umbrella organization which came up with suggested guidelines.
DeleteOne of the reasons that I have more questions than answers is that I don’t know any transgender person as a friend. I do know that having a friend who was gay during college helped me very much in evaluating other information out there.
ReplyDeleteIt was particularly helpful that at the time we met he was still struggling with his attraction to men and looking for answers. Over the next two years, his gay identity and behavior solidified. While there may be some people who get socialized into being gay and can be talked out of it, Jerry was as attracted to men as I am to women.
At that time there was a lot of confusion between sexual orientation and gender orientation. Although I am very analytical, task- oriented, and emotionally reserved like my father I was also aware of that I had integrated my mother’s caring and listening into my personality. Did this gender integration mean that I was capable of being gay? Jerry settled all that; he and I were very different.
While Jerry made me strongly sympathetic to the fact that many if not most gay people have to accept their own given sexual orientation, I also saw first-hand that he did become socialized into a gay subculture as he “came out.” I was not particularly happy with what I saw of gay culture. For starters, he took up smoking. I am allergic to tobacco. There is a lot about gay culture that I see as very analogous to the hyper heterosexual cultures that we often find in fraternities, male athletic teams, and the military –all of which I find repulsive.
More recently a male professional friend in the mental health system had a life- long male partner. Again, our friendship helped me to realize that gay relationships can have all the characteristics of marriage, and therefore I think we should accept them as marriages.
Neither of my two gay friends seems to think of themselves as a woman; I certainly don’t think of them as women. They are men who find men sexually attractive. In transgendered persons, evidently a biological appearing male who experiences himself as a woman wants to look and relate to others as a woman. Does that mean he is attracted to men? Does that mean he wants men to find him attractive as a woman? I get the feeling this is something different than being gay, i.e., attracted to one’s own sex.
Is this something different than just wanting to do a lot of things that the opposite sex does? It is interesting that this seems to be occurring now when we have broken down a lot of the sexual stereotypes of what males and females do. Yet some people want to BE the opposite sex. I have integrated my mother’s listening and caring into my life. Yet I find it very difficult to imagine being a woman. I wouldn’t know how to dress or act.
It takes time to develop our personal identities even though their trajectory may have been shaped by events in our early lives. We accompany others by listening to them, and honestly sharing how we are alike and unlike in our experiences. I think we can invite each other to be companions in our life journeys. But we all have personal freedom. We cannot demand others to collaborate in our sometime misbegotten projects.
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ReplyDeleteScience fiction has treated this theme. Even Captain Kirk of Star Trek had his mind swapped with a woman temporarily. Performing this thought experiment on myself, I tend to think I would not opt for surgery. If I were a man in a woman's body, then I'd be a man in a woman's body. Strangely enough, I can imagine being transgender but I can't imagine being gay. That relates to the essence of my mind.
ReplyDeleteAgain, I wonder how this relates to nature versus nurture. Did I like playing with trucks or was I brainwashed into liking trucks? I know no one brainwashed me into liking explosions and I took every opportunity as a boy to create one.
Some life forms are male or female at different times in their life cycle. Some are both. Are there sapient life forms in the universe based on this setup?
LOL, I remember that Star Trek episode!
DeleteIf you really want to get into some mind bendy stuff, start thinking about gender/sex in the next life. Do angels have gender? Does it even matter when you get to heaven?
Although Andrew Sullivan was one of the first advocates for gay marriage, he is very skeptical of the transgender movement. His blog is behind a paywall but I am on his e-mail list so I get previews:
ReplyDeleteThe second example was when I read the new guidelines for trans healthcare, issued by the World Professional Association for Transgender Health. These are the approved medical guidelines for sex-changes now called “gender-affirming care.”
The guidelines remove any clear lower-age limits for puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and removal of healthy organs — allowing any individual treatment at any age. A minor who, in some states, cannot legally have sex, can have breasts and womb removed, clitoris turned into a pseudo-penis, or be fully castrated. But none of this is new. What’s new is another gender identity, requiring more “gender-affirming care.”
That gender identity is a eunuch. Yes: eunuch. Money quote from the most authoritative body on transgender healthcare in a new chapter:
Eunuch individuals will present themselves clinically in various ways. They wish for a body that is compatible with their eunuch identity—a body that does not have fully functional male genitalia. Some other eunuch individuals feel acute discomfort with their male genitals and need to have them removed to feel comfortable in their bodies …
Like other gender diverse individuals, eunuch individuals may be aware of their identity in childhood or adolescence. Due to the lack of research into the treatment of children who may identify as eunuchs, we refrain from making specific suggestions.
Yes, children may identify as eunuchs, according to these experts. And a whole session at the WPATH conference this past week was devoted to the subject. Wes Yang has transcribed the session here. Read the whole thing. One expert noted:
Eunuch is the oldest recognized gender outside the binary. It’s in the Bible … It became the standard route into bureaucracy for religious hierarchy, military, and district administrators throughout the Eurasian landmass … [The reduction in reactive aggression from castration] is part of why they were so prominent in past governance. They make excellent military commanders, they can sit back and carefully plan and organize a campaign without getting caught up in the immediate emotions of it with reactive aggression.
Close to 30 percent of both the eunuchs and the wannabes [those wanting to be castrated but still with their balls attached] had practical experience with the castration of an animal. They know what the procedure is, they know the results that occur … So there’s a lot of interest out there that is not being taken care of.
This is probably one of the most marginalized and stigmatized communities in any culture anywhere across the world ... Withholding treatment will cause individuals harm through self-surgery, surgery by unqualified practitioners, or unsupervised use of medications.
This, of course, is the same rationale for operating on children: that if they don’t treat them, the kids will harm themselves. If this sounds like a return to the 17th century when the Vatican castrated boys to sing in choirs so that their voices would never deepen, well it is:
We have documents from some of the Italian duchies of boys coming and requesting the funds to pay the doctor to get castration, and of the funds being granted. They did fall into this as voluntary, as well
You really have to read the whole transcript to believe it. This is the same group now determining what can and cannot be done to children who don’t conform to gender stereotypes.
Um, yeah. I grew up on a ranch, and know the process by which horses and cattle become steers or geldings. I wasn't aware that it was considered a third sex, I had thought it was just male animals without the family jewels.
DeleteThat is interesting about the reasons someone would choose to be a eunuch, I had previously thought it was probably involuntary, something done to them without their consent.
I know part of the reason the church objects to transgender surgeries is that it considers them self-mutilation. One can scarcely read accounts of what these surgeries entail without feeling that they are mutilating. The surgeries can somewhat duplicate the appearance of the other gender's sexual body parts, but the result is not functional sex organs. And I would think they would have to be maintained, much like a body piercing that would grow back together otherwise.
Jean mentioned that most trans people don't have body surgery, and I can understand why.
A long time ago there was a book called The Female Eunuch. I didn't read it, but I believe the author was Germaine Greer. I think it was a figure of speech, but I wonder if there are women who want to be actual eunuchs.
DeleteGreer's thesis was that traditional feminine roles require women to repress themselves sexually, rendering them eunuchs.
DeleteInterestingly, Greer came close to saying this voluntary castration was the result of "social contagion," which she characterized as social conditioning handed down by the patriarchy.
So Greer, always a provocateur, would say that, yes, there are women who want to be eunuchs if they willingly chain themselves to motherhood and monogamy.
I know part of the reason the church objects to transgender surgeries is that it considers them self-mutilation.
DeleteWay back in 2003 a "Vatican document" said (and I think this is a paraphrase):
-- An analysis of the moral licitness of "sex-change" operations. It concludes that the procedure could be morally acceptable in certain extreme cases if a medical probability exists that it will "cure" the patient's internal turmoil.
But a source familiar with the document said recent medical evidence suggested that in a majority of cases the procedure increases the likelihood of depression and psychic disturbance.
Many people consider circumcision "mutilation," and many women have double mastectomies when they are not (strictly speaking) necessary. Most surgeries would make the average person squeamish, but that is no help in judging their morality
The surgeries can somewhat duplicate the appearance of the other gender's sexual body parts, but the result is not functional sex organs.
It depends on what you mean by "functional sex organs." After "bottom surgery," a trans man can't father a child, and a trans woman can't get pregnant, but they are both capable of sexual intercourse, and orgasm is at least possible for both. But "bottom surgery" is relatively uncommon (and whoppingly expensive).
I see a great many trans men on TikTok, and almost all of them are masculine appearing and (it seems to me) better than average looking. Decades ago, I worked with a woman who was "big-boned" and had a very deep voice. Years later, after she left the company, everyone who had known her—including women who had shared hotel rooms with her at national sales meetings —was stunned to discover she was biologically male. That was a long time ago, though, and we were pretty naive about such things.
About the women who have double mastectomies (and aren't transitioning), they mostly do it because there is a family history of breast cancer, and they have tested positive for the gene which causes it. Among those who have the gene, there is something like an 80% chance of them getting cancer.
DeleteI am among the maybe 1% of American females older than 12 who doesn’t have pierced ears. Someone asked me once why I didn’t have my ears pierced. Well, I don’t like big needles and pain, even small, transitory pain. But I also didn’t understand why I should have holes put in my ears just to wear certain kinds of earrings. Is piercing ears a form of self- mutilation?
DeleteKatherine, I know several women who had prophylactic mastectomies, usually after getting breast cancer in their 20s or 30s, when it is usually a very aggressive for of it. . One was of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage, at high risk for a breast cancer. After she got breast cancer and the doctors learned of her heritage and that her mother had died from breast cancer when she was 50, she was tested for the gene. She carried it so a second mastectomy was done. The others were told that they were at high risk for future cancer, but I don’t know if they were tested. They didn’t have an ethnic heritage that is high risk as my neighbor did. However, with one exception, they also had reconstructive surgery to create new breasts. Since both of my sisters have also had breast cancer, gene testing was recommended for us, primarily to protect daughters or granddaughters. My eldest sister didn’t want to be tested. Her daughter is 60, but she has no biological granddaughters. I have sons, but also two granddaughters. My other sister and I both tested negative for the dozen or so known genes associated with breast cancer.
DeleteWhat does preventive mastectomy have to do with trans people? Women without breasts are still women. So are women who have had hysterectomies. Maybe I'm not following ...
DeleteJean, Katherine said above:
DeleteI know part of the reason the church objects to transgender surgeries is that it considers them self-mutilation. One can scarcely read accounts of what these surgeries entail without feeling that they are mutilating.
My point is that what is considered to be mutilation depends on ones perspective. I don't want to be overly "woke," but I don't think it is helpful to think of trans men or women as people who have volunteered to be mutilated.
Thanks for clarification. Bottom surgery sounds very dicey. But people have all sorts of corrective surgical interventions with a slight chance of working. Thinking of those folks who have received animal organ transplants. All of them have died. Is that mutilation?
DeleteJean, I was simply responding to David and Katherine. David noted that some women get double mastectomies even when not “ needed” - I presume not needed because not currently required because of an already existing medical condition. So perhaps they are transitioning. Katherine then noted that some women get mastectomies because of family history. I was not trying to imply that women who have mastectomies aren’t women, simply concurring with Katherine’s observation.
DeleteI feel that I am totally unqualified to comment on the transgender phenomenon. I have no idea how much of it is biologically driven nor if some might be psychologically driven. Nor do I know whether this matters. But I do think that more needs to be known before subjecting minors to hormones/and or major irreversible surgery.
Quick search of "where can my child get gender reassignment surgery" indicates that hospitals doing this type of surgery don't take patients under 18.
DeleteHormones are a different matter. Minors can get birth control pills from their doctors and Planned Parenthood. Making hormonal birth control OTC has gained in popularity. So guessing hormones would be hard to police.
Ok - I’ll break down with a few observations. Animal organ transplants are only done as last chance efforts to save someone’s life. So, they are medically driven.
DeleteAlso - It is my experience that adolescents from about age 10 on frequently struggle with identity issues of all kinds. They often rebel against parents, schools, the establishment in general, especially if they don’t totally fit “ the norm”. Since they aren’t the Susie cheerleader type, or the football quarterback type, or even the school newspaper editor type, or the star of the school play, they put on a goth appearance, or a hippie appearance (popular in my youth), or jock attitudes, haircuts and attire. They get tattoos if they can, and then, years later, undergo more pain and expense to get them removed. The hairstyles are often somewhat bizarre in both cut and color, as is clothing. I think that some try on sexual identities also, in this era of extreme sexual openness and experimentation. When my sons were in college they said many of the girls claimed to be bisexual (they never mentioned guys as far as bisexuality went). But a few years later their female former classmates had settled on being either hetero- or homo-sexual, no longer experimenting. A couple of them claimed to remain bi, but gave that identity up after marriage to either a same sex partner or an opposite sex partner. Cheating is apparently still strongly frowned upon by that generation, even if they had multiple sexual partners before marriage.
Long- term health issues could include emotional and physical because of decisions made to match a perceived identity that no longer matches what they are as adults. Some elective surgeries cannot be reversed. I had a friend who had her tubes tied after her third child. When she was 39 she changed her mind. Her doctor said he would try to reverse it, but didn’t guarantee success. It actually did work and she had a fourth child at age 40. Even her doctor was amazed. But I suspected at the time after many long hours of talking about the decision before she did it, that her many emotional issues stemming from physical and emotional abuse by her father when she was growing up, along with being sexually molested as a preteen by her father’s very dear friend, the parish pastor, was part of what drove her to reverse the tubes tying surgery. She never told her parents about the priest because her father would have blamed her, and beaten her as punishment. So was complicated, but her decision to reverse was definitely emotionally driven as she was facing getting older. A year after her baby was born she had a facelift. She has had more “ work” done since, and now, at 80, is looking a bit like Phyllis Diller did after too many cosmetic surgeries.
Many common cancers are hormone driven - breast, ovarian (usually a death sentence), uterine, cervical, prostate, testicular etc. . Millions of women were given hormone therapy during peri- menopause and menopause life stages. .It was years before they connected the dots between this common practice to ease symptoms and the increase in breast cancer rates. I n ver took them, but most of my older friends did. There was also an association between breast cancer and the pill in the early years of usage. The hormone levels in the pill were drastically reduced after that, and doctors recommended that women stop taking them by age 40. Since I have had breast cancer, I am also at higher risk for another, different, hormone driven cancer. Ovarian cancer killed my mother in law. There are no screening tests for it, and symptoms don’t usually appear until very late - too late to save the woman’s life.
PS re teens and birth control pills. My husband is convinced that one reason so many young women we know have had to get IVF when unable to get pregnant even though only in their late 20s or early 30s is because of starting to use contraceptive pills when they were still in high school. In addition to the young women in our family and friends circles who have had IVF, we notice that there are far more twins around these days in our community than there used to be. This is a common occurrence with IVF. One of my nephew’s wives had twins after IVF, and we see lots of twins these days.
DeleteMy point is that most opinions about trans issues come from the unfounded fears of culture warriors or general "ick" feelings about people changing their gender.
DeleteThe fact is that I could not find any hospital doing gender reassignment surgery on children, and the American Pediatric Association does not sanction hormone therapy for prepubescent children.
Many mothers, including mine, in the 1960s wanted girls in my class on hormonal birth control at age 14 onward, to prevent pregnancy, reduce period discomfort, and control acne.
That has nothing to do with trans people, of course, other than to demonstrate that we are often very quick to rush to proactively "fix" people with pharmaceutical solutions.
Many people consider circumcision "mutilation,"
ReplyDeleteAlien anthropologists would have an interesting time of explaining how circumcision so essential to Judaism was rejected by Christianity, then became a post Enlightenment medical procedure!
My advice to Catholic school people would be to base their desire not to cooperate with adolescent gender transformation on questions of its proven efficacy and the issue of informed consent by adolescents rather than on moral reasoning. That might allow Catholic schools to cooperate in the rare cases in which there is a physical problem that needs to be resolved in children while maintaining that psychological problems should await adulthood for their resolution.
However, that may become impossible. The transgender people seem bent on establishing gender transformation as a human right and making it illegal discrimination to oppose it. A lot of the Catholic legal establishment (in light of the present Supreme Courts support for religious rights) may advise the bishops that they would have better legal grounds for noncooperation by maintaining that gender transformation is against the Catholic faith.
So, there may be an attempt to base Catholic opposition on something like self-mutilation being against the natural law. There are some Catholics, e.g. Cardinal George, who want to see us in some deep conflict with secularism that requires us to be willing to be martyrs.
The self-mutilation argument would face the problem of our relationship with the Jews. We have to admit that circumcision was part of God’s relationship with Israel, therefore we have to maintain that it does not constitute self-mutilation. We have had about a century of medical circumcision in America without objection by the Church.
There is evidence that the Church discouraged castration as a means of observing celibacy but there is evidence that it was tolerated for male choristers. So, it will be hard to say there was a consistent church teaching on the subject.
Of course, we could argue that our theology has matured and that we now reject physical or hormonal means of gender transformation. But that is unlikely to be well received inside or outside the church.
We need policies that are based on practical issues that do not wed us to ideological stands that provoke confrontations both inside and outside the church.
"We need policies that are based on practical issues that do not wed us to ideological stands that provoke confrontations both inside and outside the church." I agree with that, Jack.
DeleteCouple final thoughts about rules and regs governing trans kids, children of gay parents, kids whose parents are divorced, kids with disabilities the school cannot accommodate, or even kids whose parents cannot afford to send them there:
ReplyDeleteWhat message does it send to Catholic school kids when there are rules about who can attend their school?
If Catholic students are not required to deal with the world as it is as they absorb the faith, what kind of Catholics will they make?
Also: As I was trying to learn more about transgender teens based on the comments here, I found this: https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/us-sex-reassignment-surgery-market
Grand View Research studies trends and market potential that businesses (including hospitals) can use to make decisions. If you have cancer, you are well aware of the way profit drives research, treatment, and cost.
Whatever the Church or any of us thinks about trans people, there is $$ to be made in offering, perhaps pushing, surgery.
How does the Church maintain its relevance as an arbiter of ethics and morality in a world where tech advances seem to make problems go poof all while providers rich?
The Church cannot just make exclusionary rules. Catholics regularly ignore birth control regulations, as well as those against abortion a fair amount of the time. Gay Catholics and their families often find themselves in conflict with the Church and other Catholics.