Sianelle, you understand. You get it.
Look, I'm not actually Transsexual. I'm almost the "perfect experiment", what happens when a biological woman is lumbered with a male-looking body. That I am a woman, even by the Vatican's current opinion, is proven by the fact that my body changed to match my mind. Now whether you see the Hand of the Almighty in this, some kind of miracle, or (as I do) merely a rare and not well understood medical oddity, makes no difference. The facts are as they are.
And in my thoughts, my feelings, my life history (though not my body), I am identical in every respect to a Transsexual woman. Indistinguishable in every respect. If I am female, they are too.
If the Almighty ever wanted to provide a Sign, I'm it. Well if so, He uses some very, very unworthy material to implement His purposes. Why me? I'm no saint, I know dozens, even hundreds who had misery far worse than I did. Who deserved a natural cure far more. I don't understand, and I am genuinely and with no pretence at false humility, not worthy. Others are.
I'm not even worthy of the label "Christian", as although I try to live by Christian precepts, I lack faith. And fail miserably in my attempts anyway, as do we all. Surely this gift, this redemption, this "Get Out Of Hell Free" card should have been given to someone who prayed for it? Someone who deserved it far more than I did?
I don't know, and besides which, it's not important, even though it is never far from my thoughts. What
is important is that Transsexual people not continue to be misunderstood and persecuted because of that misunderstanding. What
is important is that Intersexed boys not be castrated in an attempt to make them female, and Intersexed girls not be surgically and hormonally masculinised, sterilised, in an attempt to make them male.
Dr McHugh is half-right: the surgical mutilation of newborn Intersexed children is an atrocity. Where he's terribly wrong though is when Intersexed (inluding neurologically Intersexed) adults, who can let us know what gender they are, request body modification and get refused because... well, just because. Because of Political Belief.
I'll quote Dr McHugh's Psychiatric Misadventures (available online)
Psychiatric Misadventures.The zeal for this sex-change surgery--perhaps, with the exception of frontal lobotomy, the most radical therapy ever encouraged by twentieth century psychiatrists--did not derive from critical reasoning or thoughtful assessments. These were so faulty that no one holds them up anymore as standards for launching any therapeutic exercise, let alone one so irretrievable as a sex-change operation. The energy came from the fashions of the seventies that invaded the clinic--if you can do it and he wants it, why not do it? It was all tied up with the spirit of doing your thing, following your bliss, an aesthetic that sees diversity as everything and can accept any idea, including that of permanent sex change, as interesting and that views resistance to such ideas as uptight if not oppressive. Moral matters should have some salience here.
...
We need to know how to prevent such sadness, indeed horror. We have to learn how to manage this condition as a mental disorder when we fail to prevent it. If it depends on child rearing, then let's hear about its inner dynamics so that parents can be taught to guide their children properly. If it is an aspect of confusion tied to homosexuality, we need to understand its nature and exactly how to manage it as a manifestation of serious mental disorder among homosexual individuals. But instead of attempting to learn enough to accomplish these worthy goals, psychiatrists collaborated in a exercise of folly with distressed people during a time when "do your own thing" had something akin to the force of a command.
When these words were written in 1992, it was possible to defend them. There's a lot in there that I agree with - I'm rather conservative myself. But the autopsy and MRI results and so on that appear to show biological causation have been matched with a very, very low rate of cure from psychiatric techniques - comparable to that of curing amputated limbs by prayer.
Despite searches over 40 years, there's no pattern, no evidence that it's tied to either child-rearing or homosexuality, or anything else in environment in the general case. So much of what was in psych textbooks of even as late as 20 years ago has been debunked, yet myths not supported by evidence persists. In only giving experimental psychiatric treatment, and not proven effective therapy, thousands have died as the result, and for nothing. It is a wild goose chase.
It is true that Johns Hopkins closed down their sex reassignment surgical department, and that it remains closed. It's also true that Johns Hopkins now refers patients to other surgical units. They had too many patients die to continue a policy based on politics and "what should be" rather than reality.
Pardon me, you're not the only woman who is fallible and sometimes thinks most uncharitable thoughts, Sianelle!
I'll quote something I wrote over on the Catholic Answers
The Vatican brought in an outside consultant with a very good reputation regarding all manner of sexual problems, Dr McHugh, in the mid-90's. It over-rode it's own scientists, notably Jesuit Father Urbano Navarrete who have made lifetime careers studying this particular area. It also discarded practices dating back to 1180 ( Peter Cantors
De vitio sodomitico or On Sodomy (d. 1192 AD)
Quote:
The Lord formed man from the slime of the earth on the plan of Damascus, later fashioning woman from his rib in Eden. Thus in considering the formation of woman, lest any should believe they would be hermaphrodites, he stated, Male and female created he them, as if to say, There will not be intercourse of men with men or women with women, but only of men with women and vice versa. For this reason the church allows a hermaphrodite that is, someone with the organs of both sexes, capable of either active or passive functions to use the organ by which (s)he is most aroused or the one which (s)he is more susceptible.
If (s)he is more active [literally, lustful], (s)he may wed as a man, but if (s)he is more passive, (s)he may marry as a woman. If; however, (s)he should fail with one organ, the use of the other can never be permitted, but (s)he must be perpetually celibate to avoid any similarity to the role inversion of sodomy, which is detested by God.
Unfortunately... Dr McHugh is a maverick, not a specialist in the area, and who as a very conservative person in a very liberal age has allowed his political belief to cloud his judgement. He has not published a single paper in the area, other than in religious and political (not medical) journals.
The Vatican made its best efforts, in good faith, to follow the best and latest scientific data. Their choice of independent scientific guide though can be accurately described as a crackpot
in this particular area., while a well-respected and eminent scholar in others.
The Vatican has not re-visited this area since around 2000. Over 50% of the papers on the subject have been written in the last 10 years. They are available for anyone to read on PubMed, and other online sources.
I'm sure the Vatican will re-visit the area, eventually. They usually get things right in the end. I just hope it doesn't take centuries though, as it has been known to in the past.