On Evil Euphemisms

MKJ

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Of course it's descriptive. All euphemisms are descriptive. But they happen to be false descriptions. "Boyfriend" is similarly a false description, for the person in question is neither a boy, nor (merely) a friend.

"This kind of issue" is a feeling, which can become obsession, that one "should have been" born the other sex. This is distinguishable from genuine hermaphroditism, which is a genuine physical abnormality, like being born with no eyes, so I'm not talking about hermaphrodites.

A feeling, even a persistent one, is not justified merely because one has it. If I have a persistent feeling and desire to have been born at the end of the eighteenth century, should we )if we could) then bend our technological capabilities to grant me that wish and fulfill that desire?

Such a feeling is unfortunate - but so is the desire for other good things misapplied, like alcoholism or same-sex attraction - which this feeling is obviously connected to. They grow from the same limb of falsehood. There is not one person here who, had they been born fifty or a hundred years earlier, would have taken seriously a claim of "gender dysphoria". Have you read Chesterton's essay at the beginning of the thread?

Chesterton is pretty clear about the penchant for taking Greek - or any foreign language - terms to make something wrong sound acceptable. And this is done all the time. It was done with "homosexual" - and now people accept open sodomy in our society. It is being done with "polyamory", and in less than a decade we will see open approval of polygamy. Finally we will find medical terms for pedophilia (itself a euphemism, as it merely means "the love of children"), and inappropriate behavior with animals (likewise) being a nameless monstrosity, something the apostle Paul affirmed the existence of, and they will gradually receive approval (I said GRADUALLY - in the case of 'pedophilia' it will start with lowering the age of consent, at first to 17, then sixteen, eventually down to puberty).

The assumption encouraged in the modern media is that whatever a person wants to be, that's what they are. A truth is taken - that we can affirm or deny our passions and align ourselves with or against them (the latter may be called "theosis"), and twisted so that it is the affirmation that is the good that people see and the denial that is bad. In the film "The Iron Giant" we see an illustration of "You are who you choose to be" as a choice against the passion, in "The X-Men" we see it as for the passion. (If that seems esoteric and out of the blue, wait for my upcoming post on "the X-Men!"). And so we see a girl get a bizarre operation by twisted doctors, who learned nothing from Dr Frankenstein and then the media cheerfully refer to her as a "he", merely because she was given hormonal treatments and had an appendage added, as if sex was a merely physical reality. Or vice-versa (a boy calling himself a girl and having himself mutilated and hormonalized).

If I take "gender dysphoria" and translate it I get "grammatical gender - bad feeling". Now setting aside the problem of everybody forgetting that even their parents said "sex" rather than "gender" - a fad of the last twenty-five years - I'm still left with saying that a person has a bad feeling about their sex. How in the heck does that work out to a boy being a girl, merely because he thinks, wishes, feels and desires to be? Since when can we change absolute physical reality merely by desiring to do so? We are not merely material - where is the operation on the soul that is so desperately needed, for it is clearly not the physical reality that is wrong, when a person genes are definitely xx or xy, but a sickness of the soul. And for that we need the Church, not a medical (physical) doctor, and for the person who suffers from such a desire an effort, a struggle, that may or may not be lifelong, is called for. Our feelings cannot be cured by medical doctors - the ones that purport to do so have stepped outside of their field of competency. The real cure and comfort is in Jesus Christ.


GK Chesterton

I think you've missed the point. When someone walks into the psychiatrists office saying "I feel like I don't belong in my body and my sex is the reason", what is the appropriate thing for him to write down in his notes? "The patient has a bad feeling which has no reality"? Not that helpful, and especially not very helpful for looking at the literature to discover what might cause such a feeling and what might help it.

You also have a real dualist tendency with regard to mind/body. Feelings are often caused by the body, and can be treated as such, or sometimes the body and the spirit have to be approached together.

Such feelings are not new - they have been documented in a variety of times and places and even given other names in the past.

If creating a label for a real experience is a euphemism, than language is in big trouble.
 
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rusmeister

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I think you've missed the point. When someone walks into the psychiatrists office saying "I feel like I don't belong in my body and my sex is the reason", what is the appropriate thing for him to write down in his notes? "The patient has a bad feeling which has no reality"? Not that helpful, and especially not very helpful for looking at the literature to discover what might cause such a feeling and what might help it.

You also have a real dualist tendency with regard to mind/body. Feelings are often caused by the body, and can be treated as such, or sometimes the body and the spirit have to be approached together.

Such feelings are not new - they have been documented in a variety of times and places and even given other names in the past.

If creating a label for a real experience is a euphemism, than language is in big trouble.

Well, you may think I have missed the point; I think that I have thought rather carefully about it and have not missed it at all. I even think/ have thought
about the points you bring up.

I never suggested that such feelings were new; I freely admit that such desires are ad old as mankind.

Labels can reflect truth or falsehood; justify or condemn; cast an experience as a physical, mental or spiritual problem both when it is and is not the case. The ones I put here reflect falsehood; in this case treating the spiritual problem as a physical one; one that says that it is the body, not the mind or soul which is disordered.

As to what a psychiatrist should make note of, they should record the observations. If a patient says something, by all means record it and consider it. But do not leap to taking the patient's self- diagnosis as the correct understanding of the situation. How to help such people? The same way we propose to help people suffering from same-sex attraction or any other abnormal desire. But certainly not by affirming and approving the abnormal desire.
 
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MKJ

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Well, you may think I have missed the point; I think that I have thought rather carefully about it and have not missed it at all. I even think/ have thought
about the points you bring up.

I never suggested that such feelings were new; I freely admit that such desires are ad old as mankind.

Labels can reflect truth or falsehood; justify or condemn; cast an experience as a physical, mental or spiritual problem both when it is and is not the case. The ones I put here reflect falsehood; in this case treating the spiritual problem as a physical one; one that says that it is the body, not the mind or soul which is disordered.

As to what a psychiatrist should make note of, they should record the observations. If a patient says something, by all means record it and consider it. But do not leap to taking the patient's self- diagnosis as the correct understanding of the situation. How to help such people? The same way we propose to help people suffering from same-sex attraction or any other abnormal desire. But certainly not by affirming and approving the abnormal desire.

Who is affirming? There are other types of body dysphoria, and calling them such doesn't mean people think they are good things - in general, they are considered bad. Some anorexics, for example suffer from this, as do some of those folks who have repeated bizarre plastic surgeries.

And the mind and body and soul are not separate things - they are pretty intimately related, a whole. Especially when you are talking about people's emotions and feelings, separating body and mind doesn't make any sense - emotions and feeling are chemical reactions in the body, and they happen for a reason. In the case of well documented feelings that are seen across different cultures there is reason to think there may well be something similar going on inside the bodies of all these people.
 
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rusmeister

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Who is affirming? There are other types of body dysphoria, and calling them such doesn't mean people think they are good things - in general, they are considered bad. Some anorexics, for example suffer from this, as do some of those folks who have repeated bizarre plastic surgeries.

And the mind and body and soul are not separate things - they are pretty intimately related, a whole. Especially when you are talking about people's emotions and feelings, separating body and mind doesn't make any sense - emotions and feeling are chemical reactions in the body, and they happen for a reason. In the case of well documented feelings that are seen across different cultures there is reason to think there may well be something similar going on inside the bodies of all these people.
Here I agree with you - on both points. I certainly do not dispute that there can be bad feelings with physical causes. However, I DO dispute that one's sex is such a case to be identified as a "dysphoria".
I also agree that the body and soul are not unrelated things; they are indeed connected. What I dispute specifically is the idea that one's sex is actually a mistake. I insist that they ARE connected - only that the feeling is caused by ailment of the soul, not the body. It is the people doing these surgeries and treatments who treat the body as a disconnected thing, not me. They think that by physical mutilation of a completely normal physical structure they can make the bad feelings go away - and certainly they are right - just as the alcoholic's craving is relieved when he has another drink, or the person suffering from same- sex attraction feelsvrelieved in enacting his passion, and so on. It IS affirmation of the feeling; that the feeling, the passion, is the right thing to be acted on. When you say "there is reason to think there may be something going on inside the bodies of these people" you likewise affirm it. Yet I am speaking, not about hermaphrodites or genuine physical mutations. I am speaking of the complete physical normality of the bodies of boys and girls. Being born a girl is not abnormal. It is not a deformity. The deformity is in the soul, which, though connected to the body, has characteristics distinct from the body, and the feelings under question are precisely not physical sensations. It is not a deformity to have a perfectly normal and healthy female body, as Chaz Bono thinks, and the body is not the cause of that sort of feeling. The soul is. Mutilating the healthy body and pumping it full of hormones in contradiction to its divine design is not treatment of the feelings or their cause at all. It is approval of the symptom. It is exactly like saying "my arms feel like they ought to be legs" and having surgery to become a four-legged creature - and indeed it is a move away from the divine and towards the animal. It is the desire to be one's own god and reshape oneself - and the world to conform to one's own vision of it. The kingdom of Man, not of God.

(Edit) I don't mean ANY of that to seem like a personal attack! What you express is what is being said everywhere, so I'm NOT picking on you!
It's just that I feel like the boy in "The Emperor's New Clothes" who's saying the obvious to a nation of people to whom it's no longer obvious. All people of all generations would agree with me, and would call it simply "common sense" and most wouldn't even see why it would need to be expounded on. It is specifically our generation that has gone off its head on this issue of the affirmation of perverted (in the literal sense of 'turned the wrong way') desire. CS Lewis called it "bent" desire.
 
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MKJ

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Here I agree with you - on both points. I certainly do not dispute that there can be bad feelings with physical causes. However, I DO dispute that one's sex is such a case to be identified as a "dysphoria".
I also agree that the body and soul are not unrelated things; they are indeed connected. What I dispute specifically is the idea that one's sex is actually a mistake. I insist that they ARE connected - only that the feeling is caused by ailment of the soul, not the body. It is the people doing these surgeries and treatments who treat the body as a disconnected thing, not me. They think that by physical mutilation of a completely normal physical structure they can make the bad feelings go away - and certainly they are right - just as the alcoholic's craving is relieved when he has another drink, or the person suffering from same- sex attraction feelsvrelieved in enacting his passion, and so on. It IS affirmation of the feeling; that the feeling, the passion, is the right thing to be acted on. When you say "there is reason to think there may be something going on inside the bodies of these people" you likewise affirm it. Yet I am speaking, not about hermaphrodites or genuine physical mutations. I am speaking of the complete physical normality of the bodies of boys and girls. Being born a girl is not abnormal. It is not a deformity. The deformity is in the soul, which, though connected to the body, has characteristics distinct from the body, and the feelings under question are precisely not physical sensations. It is not a deformity to have a perfectly normal and healthy female body, as Chaz Bono thinks, and the body is not the cause of that sort of feeling. The soul is. Mutilating the healthy body and pumping it full of hormones in contradiction to its divine design is not treatment of the feelings or their cause at all. It is approval of the symptom. It is exactly like saying "my arms feel like they ought to be legs" and having surgery to become a four-legged creature - and indeed it is a move away from the divine and towards the animal. It is the desire to be one's own god and reshape oneself - and the world to conform to one's own vision of it. The kingdom of Man, not of God.

(Edit) I don't mean ANY of that to seem like a personal attack! What you express is what is being said everywhere, so I'm NOT picking on you!
It's just that I feel like the boy in "The Emperor's New Clothes" who's saying the obvious to a nation of people to whom it's no longer obvious. All people of all generations would agree with me, and would call it simply "common sense" and most wouldn't even see why it would need to be expounded on. It is specifically our generation that has gone off its head on this issue of the affirmation of perverted (in the literal sense of 'turned the wrong way') desire. CS Lewis called it "bent" desire.

No no, I don't take it as a personal attack - though I really don't think my position has much to do with the popular position.

My main point is that the term gender dysphoria is really just descriptive - it says that the person feels alienated from his body, specifically with reference to his gender. It doesn't say that this means he is really in the wrong body, or should have surgery to correct it, or anything like that; any more than a person convinced her body is deformed and ugly should have plastic surgery to correct it.

AFAIK, the best way to actually help such people is debated among the medical community, and really none of the solutions offered are very good - the people still feel pretty awful and out of place, or they end up putting their bodies through the wringer and of course are still not fitting in to society well. But if medicine is going to figure out what causes such things and if and how it is possible to help such people, it is going to need a name for the problem. Gender dysphoria is pretty neutral and fits in with other terms used for similar problems.

Of course their are philosophical issues - what makes us a man or woman? Our body, or mind/brain, or our DNA? Presumably our soul is a man or woman's soul, but it is not, alas, visible to us. The others - well, it seems the answer can depend. This kind of issue is the sort of thing that really requires people to have a good grasp of both medical science and also theology to talk about in a helpful way, and I think that is something that may be missing in the Church to some extent - though the Catholics have been good at trying to do this in an organized way.

I've sometimes thought that part of the problem for people suffering from this may be that our ideas about gender roles are actually quite fixed and sometimes extreme. If we expect people to be very manly or womanly in their presentation of themselves, I am sure it makes it much more difficult for those who can't really identify with those things. Especially when they are then suspected of some sort of sexual immorality. OUr century has asked a lot of questions around issues with regard to sexuality, and the response of some Christians has been to become very hard-line. Which is appropriate about some things. But as far as demanding adherence to popular sex roles, it can cause problems, because our bodies are not always perfect. (And of course sometimes we think that sex roles include things that are really just conventions.)
 
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rusmeister

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Tolerance

Especially as applied to religion.
I'm re-reading GKC's "What I Saw in America" - yet another outstanding book, of special interest to us Americans, he totally zapped me with his insight on Andrew Jackson - makes me feel like school taught us nothing. But on tolerance:
It is not strictly true to say that the Pilgrim Fathers discovered America. But it is quite as true as saying that they were champions of religious liberty. If we said that they were martyrs who would have died heroically in torments rather than tolerate any religious liberty, we should be talking something like sense about them, and telling the real truth that is their due. The whole Puritan movement, from the Solemn League and Covenant to the last stand of the last Stuarts, was a struggle against religious toleration, or what they would have called religious indifference.

There's a lot more, but I know most people are allergic to seeing big blocks of text - until we know WHY we want to read it, we tend
to not want to. It's free online, but I'm sick in bed with my iPad so posting links is a problem. (and my response to MJK is on my PC, and my wife has me quarantined from the family so I can't go near it).

Anyhow, when you think about it, for practical purposes that is what the call to tolerance generally means in most cases. It does NOT mean the genuine tolerance practiced in Jerusalem, where three religions are forced to share one Holy place, but for us to agree that it does not matter, to be indifferent - and indifference is the true opposite of love.
 
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Protoevangel

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Tolerance

Especially as applied to religion.
I'm re-reading GKC's "What I Saw in America" - yet another outstanding book, of special interest to us Americans, he totally zapped me with his insight on Andrew Jackson - makes me feel like school taught us nothing. But on tolerance:


There's a lot more, but I know most people are allergic to seeing big blocks of text - until we know WHY we want to read it, we tend
to not want to. It's free online, but I'm sick in bed with my iPad so posting links is a problem. (and my response to MJK is on my PC, and my wife has me quarantined from the family so I can't go near it).

Anyhow, when you think about it, for practical purposes that is what the call to tolerance generally means in most cases. It does NOT mean the genuine tolerance practiced in Jerusalem, where three religions are forced to share one Holy place, but for us to agree that it does not matter, to be indifferent - and indifference is the true opposite of love.
It can be found here: What I Saw in America by G. K. Chesterton - Project Gutenberg

It's in multiple formats; html, kindle, plain text, etc.
 
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rusmeister

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No no, I don't take it as a personal attack - though I really don't think my position has much to do with the popular position.

My main point is that the term gender dysphoria is really just descriptive - it says that the person feels alienated from his body, specifically with reference to his gender. It doesn't say that this means he is really in the wrong body, or should have surgery to correct it, or anything like that; any more than a person convinced her body is deformed and ugly should have plastic surgery to correct it.

AFAIK, the best way to actually help such people is debated among the medical community, and really none of the solutions offered are very good - the people still feel pretty awful and out of place, or they end up putting their bodies through the wringer and of course are still not fitting in to society well. But if medicine is going to figure out what causes such things and if and how it is possible to help such people, it is going to need a name for the problem. Gender dysphoria is pretty neutral and fits in with other terms used for similar problems.

Of course their are philosophical issues - what makes us a man or woman? Our body, or mind/brain, or our DNA? Presumably our soul is a man or woman's soul, but it is not, alas, visible to us. The others - well, it seems the answer can depend. This kind of issue is the sort of thing that really requires people to have a good grasp of both medical science and also theology to talk about in a helpful way, and I think that is something that may be missing in the Church to some extent - though the Catholics have been good at trying to do this in an organized way.

I've sometimes thought that part of the problem for people suffering from this may be that our ideas about gender roles are actually quite fixed and sometimes extreme. If we expect people to be very manly or womanly in their presentation of themselves, I am sure it makes it much more difficult for those who can't really identify with those things. Especially when they are then suspected of some sort of sexual immorality. OUr century has asked a lot of questions around issues with regard to sexuality, and the response of some Christians has been to become very hard-line. Which is appropriate about some things. But as far as demanding adherence to popular sex roles, it can cause problems, because our bodies are not always perfect. (And of course sometimes we think that sex roles include things that are really just conventions.)

Sorry about the delay, and that my response is somewhat "stream-of-consciousness" due to the desire to consider each of your thoughts - I could probably rewrite this as a holistic essay, but don't have the energy.

I do get your main point, and agree that it IS a description. In trying to filter through what we agree on, what I come to is that we do agree that "gender dysphoria" is a description, and that help ought to be offered for what is granted to be a genuine problem.

The first fact about the medical community is that most of it is very far from traditional Christian faith, and that the philosophy with which it approaches medicine is increasingly materialistic - my general impression is that people believe that God and spiritual reality (as anything actually TRUE) can be completely dispensed with. That immediately makes the solutions of such a community highly suspect. They will only be right and work insofar as they align with the truth that we are created beings with souls (even if they deny those truths). I already said that a solution to this problem that excludes Christ and treats us as exclusively material beings is not a solution at all, and I'm assuming that you are a believer and would agree with that. If not, we'd have to speak on a different level.

So when you say that the best way to help such people is debated among the medical community… of course it is! They don’t even agree on what truth is; what the nature of man is and so on. How could they agree about what is to us self-evidently a problem of the soul – what are we to say when the body is completely and evidently a normal female (or male) body? The first evidence that they are confused is that they do not look at a girl like Chaz and say “She is a girl”. I shouldn’t even have to say anything about the modern insanity that has the media identifying people as whatever sex they want to be. And everybody obediently falls into line, like sheep. (I think that’s connected to the wild success of public schools in their real mission – the crippling of genuinely independent and critical thought.) But that’s what Satan does – he sews lies and confusion, so that we should not see the truth.

When you say that such people “do not fit well into society” I’d encourage thinking through exactly what that means. To me it sounds like media cant – a half-baked thought, popular and oft repeated but not completely defined or thought-out. It is evident to me that the best you can say is that the problem of “fitting” is entirely on their side – not society’s. We do not need to reshape society to fit their deformed perception; we need to teach them to work on their perception; in a word, to change themselves – or at least strive to; not to change social attitudes to make their feelings the new norm – which is what IS being done. To “fit” here is an incredibly subjective and undefined term. If I demand definition, arguments quickly break down and we are left with what the person feels – and feelings are not a basis on which to establish objective truth. (It should be given that all should “fit” to the image of Christ, and that while we all fail at this, we are called to do so – and the “homosexual” is no exception. And that, again, does not mean that we are to specially judge the sin of Sodom over others – only that we should not allow its praise and uplifting.

It ought to be obvious to even the most casually educated person that everything we are in the physical realm is based on our DNA. They are not separate things, as your dichotomy seems to treat them. It really is a final proof of the wrongness of the feeling when we find that Chaz is xx and not xy. It ends the physical argument. You’re back to a spiritual problem – which MDs can’t fix, and their meddling in a realm that is not at all their competency is abominable. None of that requires extensive medical knowledge to either see or discuss – I refuse to submit my reason exclusively to experts, although I do believe that there is such a thing as expertise and that it has its place – but if the “expert” himself sees the world in a radically wrong way, how far should I trust his knowledge? Again, I can only trust it where it aligns with what is actually true. So I don’t think that kind of thing is missing at all in the Church, and actually is a problem in the Catholic Church. Sure, if given x, then y follows, but if x is wrong from the get-go, then y is even more wrong. If the philosophy is wrong, then the science is wrong – because it’s aimed in the wrong direction. In our case it is the domination of materialism, which denied spiritual explanations for such illnesses – it must (by the internal logic) insist that the causes are also material, and not spiritual.

I’ve already spoken about language, and the philosophical wrongness of using the word “gender” – something that everyone has docilely submitted to despite the fact that our grandparents would have thought you were talking about grammar – but again, they do it, I think, because they have been trained to. This in turn has enabled thinking that treats the sexes as a social construct – for that is what gender itself is, as opposed to sex, which is an absolute physical reality.

I’m not sure why we should be concerned about “people who can’t identify with manliness or womanliness”, or why the exception should be allowed to determine the rule. Or rather, I am quite clear that we should not. Nor do I accuse them of immorality. Feelings are not actions in Orthodoxy. There are people who suffer from same-sex attraction who repent of their actions and strive not to act on their feelings, and are so not guilty of immorality – which is a matter of action, not feeling, who will get into the Kingdom before me.

The reason the response of Christians has become hard-line is because questions based on false presuppositions have been raised with insane answers.

“Appropriate” is another example of modern usage – because it is entirely subjective – it means whatever the speaker wants it to mean – it can be used for anything the speaker thinks right. Of course it’s not a new word, but our ancestors said “right/wrong”, not “in/appropriate” on these matters, and the latter adjective was used for things like fashion, which really are subjective, and so “appropriate” really is appropriate to those things. But if we follow the modern logic, then we must allow people to walk naked on the streets of San Francisco, and are left arguing about whether it is appropriate for them to plant their naked butts on public seating or not, because it is no longer wrong, but merely “inappropriate”.

I think the problem of your own perception of what is “hard-line” arises when speaking of the idea of roles of the sexes. (Note that if I rephrase popular terms, I am forced to think about them – if I simply repeat them, I do not apply much thought at all.) Roles are not generally the issue, although a person may be uncomfortable doing something, and that feeling may be based on genuine concerns or merely taste. But if a little girl doesn’t want to play with dolls, a) obviously she shouldn’t be forced to, and b) there is something obviously unusual about that girl. A Christian view and approach would condemn any behavior that was hurtful or demeaning to the child, so complaints about that are an argument against un-Christian behavior, not for calling the girl “a boy”. In any event, I do not propose imposing forced sex roles, so that question is moot. If Chaz likes to play with cars, let her play with cars! Just don't tell her she's "a boy trapped in a girl's body". And when we've gotten to the point where everyone calls her "he", then we've reached "The Emperor's New Clothes".


All we need now is the little boy shouting out the truth - hopefully, it'll bring the people back to their senses and the naked people scurrying back home to cover themselves up.
 
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MKJ

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I have a lot of issues I think with what you have said here. I'll list to make it simple:

1) As far as the medical community goes, the problem of how to treat such people doesn't get as far as any spiritual ideas not just because they aren't very good at discussing them, but because they have no real idea of the physical/chemical issues involved. Even if they had a clear philosophic view, there would be no clear idea what to actually do medically to help them.

2) Your assertion "It ought to be obvious to even the most casually educated person that everything we are in the physical realm is based on our DNA is simply incorrect. It might be what a casually educated person concludes, but it in not in fact the case - there are many other things which impact our physical bodies, and DNA is just way more complicated than that.

3)Not fitting well into society is important. Not fitting in is bad for the individual and bad for the community. Should we change society - well, sometimes yes. We shouldn't change what might be called the non-negotiables. But sometimes society makes demands that are unjust, and that includes Christian societies, in which case yes, they should change. Other times - very often - the differences that make someone "not fit in" are neutral. The look different or act oddly, or sometimes they simply feel different within themselves and so feel alienated. Very often society makes such people feel very much more alienated, so yeah, I think we need to change that.

4) And yes, if for some physical reason we don't understand, a person doesn't feel masculine or feminine, it is wrong, and frankly stupid, to try and "make" them feel that way through social pressure, or insist they act like they feel that way. It is like telling a man born without legs that he has to get fake ones and pretend to be normal in public. And if he isn't that good at it, we'll avoid him and perhaps suspect him of frequenting "legless" bars.

This is precisly what we see in many Christian communities, and it is a reason why many people give up on them. They aren't told "look, we know you have an issue, and it is going to mean you can't do everything the way you want, but at the same time we don't expect you to pretend to be something you aren't and we will be happy to see you here and befriend you, even if you are a bit odd and are the only male member of the knitting group". Instead they are told they have to not only refrain from some things, they have to pretend feel masculine or feminine and do lots of good manly or womanly things, and never give a clue that they really feel otherwise, and maybe they should try to change through bogus therapy, otherwise they will be given the cold shoulder or actually asked to leave."

And most people are not willing to pretend and conclude they aren't being asked to do anything God would really demand. So the look for God elsewhere. This was a big cause of the creation of underground movements in the first half of the 20th century - people had to pretend so completely in day to day life that they essentially created a second society where they could not have to do that. Creating it in that atmosphere though meant it had no boundaries.
 
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Hi MK,
As to your number one, that just leaves everything I said standing. If they don't have their philosophy right, then they don't understand what they are dealing with at all. Period.

On #2, I do not accept that only a small handful of "experts" who completely contradict everything humanity has always known are in the least likely to be correct. I believe humanity has made some pretty correct perceptions about the nature of men and women since Creation, and being told that only this small number of experts can be right for reasons beyond the ordinary mortal's comprehension is nonsense; it is a complete lack of common sense.

3) Maybe, but you have completely failed to define what exactly "fitting in" means. As a completely undefined term, it means nothing at all objectively, so we couldn't even agree on what it means without clear definition. I am a combination of curves and angles, and I "fit" into society - whatever that means. Whether demands are just or not depends entirely on what you mean. It sounds that you have begun the discussion assuming from the get-go that these confused people are right. I, on the other hand, begin from the assumption that they are wrong. We are already speaking past each other. I don't care to debate on this thread. You can start a discussion in St Justin's on this topic, and maybe I'll join in, but if you don't accept what I believe Orthodox Christians (which you are not at this point) must accept, then I won't debate it here.

It is a fundamental and Orthodox truth that God created men male and female. You may find people who feel God made a mistake - and such people, where they exist, are to be pitied (just as hermaphrodites and genuine physical deformities are) - but NOT told that they are an alternative "normal", for they are NOT normal - and I am not going to argue that with you. There is something wrong with them, and it is NOT the sex that they find themselves to be, but their perceptions that are warped, that are the problem. This is so obvious that to not see it is to be like a blind person who cannot perceive color. No amount of science, conducted by certain (and not all) scientists with drastically wrong worldviews to begin with, can challenge Orthodox truth. The fashionable (for that is what "modern" means) science will be found to be wrong every time - though it take a century - and we will be left with the eternal truth.

Now I do not propose telling people merely to "feel different" but to admit that the problem is decidedly in their perception - at which point it can be dealt with by priests and psych experts. But the expert who supports self-mutilation and treating the warped perception as normal is the malpractitioner.

Again, we ask the alcoholic (or whoever) to restrain his desire. He may, in a huff, march off elsewhere when he realizes that Orthodoxy does indeed call him to restrain himself, possibly to the point of abstinence. He may go underground. But that choice is his. But the response of the Church cannot be that he need not restrain himself at all because it pleases him to do as he wills. So it is here. People may walk away from God on any pretext, and we cannot pretend that they need make no change in themselves, or feel that the Church cease to call us to that change for fear that people will flee the Church.

Now a person may walk into church confused, and we are not to judge or attack him (or her). But they must lovingly, like all of us, be made aware of the need to change themselves, and become, not what they feel they'd like to be, but what God has called them to be.
 
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Hi MK,
As to your number one, that just leaves everything I said standing. If they don't have their philosophy right, then they don't understand what they are dealing with at all. Period.

On #2, I do not accept that only a small handful of "experts" who completely contradict everything humanity has always known are in the least likely to be correct. I believe humanity has made some pretty correct perceptions about the nature of men and women since Creation, and being told that only this small number of experts can be right for reasons beyond the ordinary mortal's comprehension is nonsense; it is a complete lack of common sense.

3) Maybe, but you have completely failed to define what exactly "fitting in" means. As a completely undefined term, it means nothing at all objectively, so we couldn't even agree on what it means without clear definition. I am a combination of curves and angles, and I "fit" into society - whatever that means. Whether demands are just or not depends entirely on what you mean. It sounds that you have begun the discussion assuming from the get-go that these confused people are right. I, on the other hand, begin from the assumption that they are wrong. We are already speaking past each other. I don't care to debate on this thread. You can start a discussion in St Justin's on this topic, and maybe I'll join in, but if you don't accept what I believe Orthodox Christians (which you are not at this point) must accept, then I won't debate it here.

It is a fundamental and Orthodox truth that God created men male and female. You may find people who feel God made a mistake - and such people, where they exist, are to be pitied (just as hermaphrodites and genuine physical deformities are) - but NOT told that they are an alternative "normal", for they are NOT normal - and I am not going to argue that with you. There is something wrong with them, and it is NOT the sex that they find themselves to be, but their perceptions that are warped, that are the problem. This is so obvious that to not see it is to be like a blind person who cannot perceive color. No amount of science, conducted by certain (and not all) scientists with drastically wrong worldviews to begin with, can challenge Orthodox truth. The fashionable (for that is what "modern" means) science will be found to be wrong every time - though it take a century - and we will be left with the eternal truth.

Now I do not propose telling people merely to "feel different" but to admit that the problem is decidedly in their perception - at which point it can be dealt with by priests and psych experts. But the expert who supports self-mutilation and treating the warped perception as normal is the malpractitioner.

Again, we ask the alcoholic (or whoever) to restrain his desire. He may, in a huff, march off elsewhere when he realizes that Orthodoxy does indeed call him to restrain himself, possibly to the point of abstinence. He may go underground. But that choice is his. But the response of the Church cannot be that he need not restrain himself at all because it pleases him to do as he wills. So it is here. People may walk away from God on any pretext, and we cannot pretend that they need make no change in themselves, or feel that the Church cease to call us to that change for fear that people will flee the Church.

Now a person may walk into church confused, and we are not to judge or attack him (or her). But they must lovingly, like all of us, be made aware of the need to change themselves, and become, not what they feel they'd like to be, but what God has called them to be.

I don't know how often I've seen someone work so hard to ignore actually acknowledging what someone has said, so I think I'll leave this conversation here.
 
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Aloha Joe

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Respectfully, MKJ--

I can't quite see how Rus so willfully and insistently ignores what you say, and it seems apparent to me that he's making a good-faith effort to address your points, even if he might miss a couple. Perhaps part of the difficulty lies with a lack of clarity on your part?

My understanding of how Rus may have misunderstood you:

1) I can see how Rus may not have rightfully addressed the first point of your last post, that is: while you may grant him that a wrong philosophic view would guarantee a failure to properly understand the issue, a right philosophic view, while necessary, is insufficient solitarily to understand what may also be a physical/medical issue.

FYI, for the sake of discussion in TAW, I believe the philisophical (ie, Orthodox) question of what defines gender is pretty much settled. A person with two X chromosomes (and no Y chromosome) is a female. A person with an X chromosome and a Y chromosome is a male. This chromosomal arrangement precludes certain behaviors, such as sexual intercourse with someone with a similar chromosomal pairing.

2) Rus refutes the opinions of certain "experts", when you made no allusion to experts, but rather merely asserted that there is much we (including the "casually educated") don't understand and can't conclude about DNA's role in the issue.

3) I can see how Rus might have misrepresented your opinion on the "correctness" of "dysphoric" behavior, but it may be because he extensively addressed the issue in post #169. It's confusing, then, when you reiterate a point on which you apparently agree as if it was a point of disagreement. He could, if uncharitable, reciprocally accuse you of willfully ignoring what he said.

It might be helpful to delineate what you feel are "non-negotiable" and "neutral" aberrations in behavior. Your ambiguity on this point makes it difficult to infer what should be acceptable for the sake of not alienating a "dysphoric" person. Knitting is one thing, dressing up as the opposite sex is another.

The question of permissible "masculine" and "feminine" behaviors almost approaches irrelevance, though, as the dysphoric person does not really question whether it's okay for dudes to knit or bake, but whether he is a dude at all. He rejects "male" behaviors only incidentally; what he truly rejects is the idea of his fundamental maleness.

4) This seems almost an extension of point #3. Again, it would be helpful to know which behaviors you consider "non-negotiables". If Rus is talking about disallowing full transgendered behavior in church, while you're thinking about a slightly fabulous swishiness in speaking style, everyone will just end up talking past each other.
 
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Respectfully, MKJ--

I can't quite see how Rus so willfully and insistently ignores what you say, and it seems apparent to me that he's making a good-faith effort to address your points, even if he might miss a couple. Perhaps part of the difficulty lies with a lack of clarity on your part?

Possibly, but I find this to be a general result of all my conversations with him, so I don't know.

My understanding of how Rus may have misunderstood you:

1) I can see how Rus may not have rightfully addressed the first point of your last post, that is: while you may grant him that a wrong philosophic view would guarantee a failure to properly understand the issue, a right philosophic view, while necessary, is insufficient solitarily to understand what may also be a physical/medical issue.

Yes, this was my point. Even if we have a clear view of the theological issues, there is really nothing medial we can offer people to help allieviate a problem which has it's origins in the physical. The individual with the problem then can expect that the most likely prognosis is going to be learning to deal with feeling alienated on a daily basis, just like a man with no legs or someone with mental illness will. That is going to affect what we expect of them in the community.

FYI, for the sake of discussion in TAW, I believe the philisophical (ie, Orthodox) question of what defines gender is pretty much settled. A person with two X chromosomes (and no Y chromosome) is a female. A person with an X chromosome and a Y chromosome is a male. This chromosomal arrangement precludes certain behaviors, such as sexual intercourse with someone with a similar chromosomal pairing.

Two issues here - one is that what Rus said was that the physical is controlled by our DNA, and that is objectivity false. There are many other factors that determine our physical make-up, for example exposure to chemicals in the womb, or hormones. Or as an example children who are abused can develop different brain structures due to the different chemicals in their developing brains. The emotional issues that someone with a mental illness has - and that is really what we are talking about here, are not caused by then not understanding the spiritual or theological issues. They are, fundamentally, physical, even if they are not genetic. They really are objective realities for the person involved.

As far as DNA determining sex, I wouldn't be inclined to go this far, though it is probably indicative much of the time. One reason is simply that at times, it doesn't - genetics are what are mucked up. Also - I'm not sure why we would necessarily say that DNA is deterministic wheras other factors that drive our physical nature are not. We're made so both impact the expression of our nature and I can only think that was intentional. And then, if we want to assert that DNA determines what we are supposed to be, then what does it mean when we find out a disordered activity is determined by DNA?

However, those are my thoughts - if you are aware of something saying that the OC believes DNA is always how we determine sex, I'd be interested to read it.

2) Rus refutes the opinions of certain "experts", when you made no allusion to experts, but rather merely asserted that there is much we (including the "casually educated") don't understand and can't conclude about DNA's role in the issue.

Yes, I must confess this made me made since I wasn't the one who brought up DNA in the first place. If we are going to take scientific evidence to support a position, I don't think it is legit to then dismiss the same as being not theologically acceptable.
3) I can see how Rus might have misrepresented your opinion on the "correctness" of "dysphoric" behavior, but it may be because he extensively addressed the issue in post #169. It's confusing, then, when you reiterate a point on which you apparently agree as if it was a point of disagreement. He could, if uncharitable, reciprocally accuse you of willfully ignoring what he said.

My problem I think is it seems that while on the one hand it is being addmited as a real problem, on the other it is treated as if it is primarily due to a lack of spiritual awareness, and not that big a deal to live with. In fact, a person could know and agree with the theological points, and even be very spiritually mature, and still have this deep-seated experience of not belonging to ones body. I once experienced something like this as a result of medication - that my body was not my own. It was truly horrible, almost paralyzing.

It might be helpful to delineate what you feel are "non-negotiable" and "neutral" aberrations in behavior. Your ambiguity on this point makes it difficult to infer what should be acceptable for the sake of not alienating a "dysphoric" person. Knitting is one thing, dressing up as the opposite sex is another.

The question of permissible "masculine" and "feminine" behaviors almost approaches irrelevance, though, as the dysphoric person does not really question whether it's okay for dudes to knit or bake, but whether he is a dude at all. He rejects "male" behaviors only incidentally; what he truly rejects is the idea of his fundamental maleness.

4) This seems almost an extension of point #3. Again, it would be helpful to know which behaviors you consider "non-negotiables". If Rus is talking about disallowing full transgendered behavior in church, while you're thinking about a slightly fabulous swishiness in speaking style, everyone will just end up talking past each other.

I disagree that a dysphoric person necessarily rejects his maleness. He may or may not, depending on his philosophic views. But always he feels that he does not belong to his maleness, if that makes sense. Just like a bi-polar person may accept that his behavior is abnormal and be able to see it at the time it is happening, but he isn't able to rise out of it. (Of course some of the time the effect of the illness is that he can't see it.)

But as far as your point, part of my issue here is that I think culturally we actually tend to have rather over-blown views of masculinity and femininity - they are as much mytholohy as reality. As is often the case, we have at the same time two divergent trends; one to erase sexual difference, and one to make them hyperactive. We can be very uncomfortable with the normal ambiguities of sex roles. (I notice it very much in relation to toys. It is all princesses, tea-sets, barbies etc for girls. Boy toys are work benches, trucks and so on. And the same with their clothes. I think it is actually much more extreme then when I was a child).

So part of the problem is that when we expect John Wayne, it makes it very difficult for someone who is struggling to identify with a masculine identity at all. We shouldn't expect people to have to take on what is essentially a persona to fit in - that is not really much different than taking on the persona of the other sex. Neither is true to the individual's situation.

As for what is precisely permissible: I think a lot is simply accepting that there are people like this, and that they don't feel masculine. And not being bothered by it or thinking they are somehow inadequate, any more than someone with any other untreatable condition is inadequate. As far as what they can do: I think that what would never be acceptable would be living and presenting oneself as the opposite sex. The rest is between the individual, his doctor, and priest. Clothes are sticky because they are so closely related to how we publicly identify ourselves, but the two aren't inevitably connected. I would be surprised to see that allowed but would assume if I did that the person was having a lot of trouble coping and it reduced anxiety or something - and that it really wasn't my business.

My feeling is that if we were more flexible about acknowledging the unusual situation the person is in, they are much less likely to feel the need to actively live as the other sex. If we want them to accept their bodies as God made them, we have to do the same. It is really no different than how we would treat someone with depression. We don't tell them it is ok to cut themselves, but we also don't make it so they have to seem happy and normal and cause us no discomfort.
 
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Aloha Joe

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MKJ,

I think we might be sailing past each others ships a bit when it comes to the concept of sex/gender (terms which I, unlike post-structuralist feminists, consider synonymous). I would say that gender is fundamentally, objectively and precisely defined by, rather than merely determined by, the XX or XY chromosomal pairing. That is, a person with an XY chromosome is, by definition, male. The difference may seem subtle, but I think it's very important. There may indeed be genetic factors which affect one's perception of, or comfort with, one's gender. I do agree that a person struggling with gender dysphoria has not necessarily chosen to reject his or her gender.

A broader discussion of gender identity, and the proper response of the Church to the issues and people involved, may be a bit too tangential to the thread topic, but it might be worth discussing in another thread.

For my part, I don't find gender dysphoria to be an inappropriate term for its respective pathology. To my mind, the term, rather than normalizing the disorder, implies pathology and abnormality. A term is necessary to refer to the disorder, and I don't know what a less propagandistic one would look like. I'm quite possibly wrong on this. I think the term transgender works much harder to neutralize/normalize the condition and make it determinant of fundamental identity.

Overall, I do agree with Rus regarding the Orwellian semantic shell games which so degrade language and and obfuscate ideas that two people using the same terms can be speaking virtually different languages.
 
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MKJ,

I think we might be sailing past each others ships a bit when it comes to the concept of sex/gender (terms which I, unlike post-structuralist feminists, consider synonymous). I would say that gender is fundamentally, objectively and precisely defined by, rather than merely determined by, the XX or XY chromosomal pairing. That is, a person with an XY chromosome is, by definition, male. The difference may seem subtle, but I think it's very important. There may indeed be genetic factors which affect one's perception of, or comfort with, one's gender. I do agree that a person struggling with gender dysphoria has not necessarily chosen to reject his or her gender.

A broader discussion of gender identity, and the proper response of the Church to the issues and people involved, may be a bit too tangential to the thread topic, but it might be worth discussing in another thread.

For my part, I don't find gender dysphoria to be an inappropriate term for its respective pathology. To my mind, the term, rather than normalizing the disorder, implies pathology and abnormality. A term is necessary to refer to the disorder, and I don't know what a less propagandistic one would look like. I'm quite possibly wrong on this. I think the term transgender works much harder to neutralize/normalize the condition and make it determinant of fundamental identity.

Overall, I do agree with Rus regarding the Orwellian semantic shell games which so degrade language and and obfuscate ideas that two people using the same terms can be speaking virtually different languages.


Have you ever read Pelandra? It has a very interesting take on the sex-gender question, suggesting that sex is essentially a manifestation of gender, which is a condition of the soul. And not necessarily just for living, animate beings, but also for inanimate objects and spiritual beings. I think this is the way I tend to think about it.

So in the case of a person with a genetic disorder that made it impossible to determine the sex, you would simply say it was impossible to define his gender/sex?
 
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rusmeister

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I don't know how often I've seen someone work so hard to ignore actually acknowledging what someone has said, so I think I'll leave this conversation here.
I think I could, with some justification, say the same thing.


Hi, MKJ,
I have paid VERY careful attention to what you say. I think you are an above-average IQ thinker that is definitely worth my time.

My thanks to AJ for correctly (to some degree at least) identifying the tactical problems in disagreement.

But as the OP, I have an overarching theme in this thread, and I do not want petty debates between us to derail that theme.

The first philosophic wrong is in saying "gender" rather than "sex". I find it incredible that people of our age, who remember when EVERYBODY said “sex’ and NOBODY said “gender” should have so easily forgotten that nobody ever talked like that; that the word “gender” has been quite artificially foisted on us less than one generation ago. And no one questions why, whether there is a philosophical difference. And there is. That is why the term has been so aggressively changed and promoted. And NO. ONE. QUESTIONS. IT – or how they have, without any conscious questioning, submitted to whatever the current fashion of speech is. In short, as long as y’all keep saying “gender” – a social construction that really IS relative, you really ARE open to treating sex – an absolute – as a relative thing. (“He’s 80% male, but 20% female”, or “He says he’s a “she”, so we’ll go along with whatever he says and call him a “she”, and similar nonsense becomes possible. And this is the nonsense that has come to dominate our society, reaching even inside the Church to confuse us. Given enough time and influence, and we would increasingly come to question our own Tradition, rather than the language that makes this fuzziness of thought possible.

Now there may or may not be “dysphorias”; where there are, the doctors/professionals should surely start from the right foot and see that they have a definite man or woman in front of them, and the thing that needs to be changed is the warped perception, not the hard-wired solid fact of the person’s sex, just as the thing the alcoholic needs changed is his desire for excess, not an adaptation and approval of his desire for excess.

So MKJ, you are asking what to do about people who have a genuine problem. I do not pretend to have glib answers. I only know that what HAS and IS being done is radically wrong, philosophically, and the philosophical question must be tackled before the medical one. It enables abomination, and is part and parcel of the general attack on normal sexuality and the family today, by declaring that there is no norm, that every desire is normal and good and should be accommodated. Once we have the RIGHT philosophical approach, based on Orthodox truth, then we can begin to discuss what to do about what is surely a tiny fraction of a fraction of 1% of our society, and even granted genuine exceptions, we are allowing them to determine the rule. Thus, evil euphemisms, and this one starts with the word “gender”, and goes on to say there is a problem (possibly true) with the proposed solution being to mutilate the person in question to accommodate their desire (radically wrong).


In short:

Sex: M or F?
Gender: whatever a person/society thinks it is


Just ask yourself what "gender" meant before 1970 - do a tiny little bit of etymological research if you honestly don't know:
Online Etymology Dictionary
 
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Respectfully, MKJ--

I can't quite see how Rus so willfully and insistently ignores what you say, and it seems apparent to me that he's making a good-faith effort to address your points, even if he might miss a couple. Perhaps part of the difficulty lies with a lack of clarity on your part?

My understanding of how Rus may have misunderstood you:

1) I can see how Rus may not have rightfully addressed the first point of your last post, that is: while you may grant him that a wrong philosophic view would guarantee a failure to properly understand the issue, a right philosophic view, while necessary, is insufficient solitarily to understand what may also be a physical/medical issue.

FYI, for the sake of discussion in TAW, I believe the philisophical (ie, Orthodox) question of what defines gender is pretty much settled. A person with two X chromosomes (and no Y chromosome) is a female. A person with an X chromosome and a Y chromosome is a male. This chromosomal arrangement precludes certain behaviors, such as sexual intercourse with someone with a similar chromosomal pairing.

2) Rus refutes the opinions of certain "experts", when you made no allusion to experts, but rather merely asserted that there is much we (including the "casually educated") don't understand and can't conclude about DNA's role in the issue.

3) I can see how Rus might have misrepresented your opinion on the "correctness" of "dysphoric" behavior, but it may be because he extensively addressed the issue in post #169. It's confusing, then, when you reiterate a point on which you apparently agree as if it was a point of disagreement. He could, if uncharitable, reciprocally accuse you of willfully ignoring what he said.

It might be helpful to delineate what you feel are "non-negotiable" and "neutral" aberrations in behavior. Your ambiguity on this point makes it difficult to infer what should be acceptable for the sake of not alienating a "dysphoric" person. Knitting is one thing, dressing up as the opposite sex is another.

The question of permissible "masculine" and "feminine" behaviors almost approaches irrelevance, though, as the dysphoric person does not really question whether it's okay for dudes to knit or bake, but whether he is a dude at all. He rejects "male" behaviors only incidentally; what he truly rejects is the idea of his fundamental maleness.

4) This seems almost an extension of point #3. Again, it would be helpful to know which behaviors you consider "non-negotiables". If Rus is talking about disallowing full transgendered behavior in church, while you're thinking about a slightly fabulous swishiness in speaking style, everyone will just end up talking past each other.

Hi AJ,

Great post! Thanks a lot!
I'll be brief (so as to get at least some commentary out):

1) Agreed, no argument - but the philosophical question must come first. The medical question is meaningless if the philosophy is assumed (and disagreed upon)

2) I think that experts are implied, even if not intentionally. All talk about the problems these alleged people face comes from so-called experts, and that is what I am addressing. But I certainly agree that there is much we don't know. But if we aren't being guided by the Church, we're sailing in wrong directions, and anything we get right is then only coincidentally so.

3) Yes.

4) I acknowledge the possibility of genuine problems and am not addressing them - I am addressing the broad social attitude that takes claims of exceptions and seeks to apply them universally, so that everyone is exceptional (and as was pointed out in "The Incredibles" "If everybody's special, then nobody's special") So I think MKJ is defending, at best, genuine exceptions and problems - but once again, the modern approach has started off from the wrong foot. Chaz is female at the core, however much she might wish herself to be male.

FTR, I have certainly read Perelandra; great book - but we're putting on the shoe backwards if we think that desire trumps physical reality. And I do not think that Lewis was suggesting that what might be true for other species is true for humans. It's taking the idea and going in a wrong direction with it. But that's a topic for another thread.

To sum up, the grave danger of our time as regards sexuality is the attitude that desires be "liberated". We are in no danger of Puritanism at this time, and so the thing the Church - and Christians, even outside the Church, ought to stress is that God's design is right and good, and if things go wrong, it is no call to treat them as if they are right. There is a definite thing which we call the family, which reflects God's plan for humanity and which reflects His Holy Trinity, and alternates to that are nothing less than attacks upon it; man's effort to make himself his own god and refuse to submit to Christ as Lord.

(I'm no Chesterton, one essay of his is worth 50 posts by me)
 
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