TRANSGENDERISM AND LOVE

What does love require of us? How would you respond to your friend who informed you:

·       I just mainlined heroin for the first time. I love it. It is me, my reason for being. And if you love me, you will be happy for me that I have found what truly makes me happy.

Would you tell him you are behind him 100%? Probably not, and for good reason. Now let me apply this to the question of transgenderism. Your male friend confides that he is really a woman and is going to obtain a sex change. Would you encourage this? Would this be love?

The transgendered attempt suicide at the rate of 40%. A Report of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey says:

• A staggering 41% of transgenders surveyed report they have attempted suicide and that those who have medically transitioned and surgically transitioned have higher rates of attempted suicide than the general population. Transgenders have higher rate of HIV infections. They are more prone to heavy drinking and the use of drugs. They have high rates of homelessness, unemployment and extreme poverty, even more so in the more difficult economic times of the last 5 years.

From these findings alone, we ought to hesitate before encouraging such a lifestyle. Besides, in the New York Magazine, Jesse  Singal had written:

·       It appears that about 80% of kids with gender dysphoria end up feeling okay, in the long run, with the bodies they were born into. (nymag.com)

The American College of Pediatricians has released a paper entitled, “Gender Ideology Harms Children,” in which they have concluded:

·       According to the DSM-V, as many as 98% of gender confused boys and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after naturally passing through puberty.

·       Conditioning children into believing a lifetime of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex is normal and healthy is child abuse.” (Salvo Magazine, Summer 2016, 6)

Consequently, many who have pursued sex-change have come to regret it and have become “detransitioners.” However, for many, irreparable damage had already been done. In a YouTube video, Carey Callahan explained:

·       I used to believe that I was…a trans guy…When I was trans…I felt that my trans identity should not be pathologized, that it was a healthy beautiful thing…that I was making these decisions from a clear state of mind…Looking back, I do not think I was in a clear state of mind…The feelings that I had interpreted as gender dysphoria were actually long-term trauma symptoms that I had never addressed. Every step of the process, every step I took in affirming that trans identity, life got worse…People in my trans bubble were some of the most anxious people I’ve ever met…Lots of everyday drug use, eating disorders, compulsive working out…lots of over-the-top sex stuff, cutting, alcoholism…It was obvious that people…were not doing well. (Salvo Magazine, Fall 2017, 35)

Meanwhile, those of the trans community claim that all of these negative outcomes are simply the result of living with discrimination. However, the transgendered are now being applauded by the media and the culture. Yet it seems that they are still paying a prohibitive price.

Cari Stella, a 22-year-old woman had been taking cross-sex hormones and even obtained a double-mastectomy. However, she now regrets her decisions:

·       I’m a real 22-year-old woman with a scarred chest, a broken voice, and a five o’clock shadow. (35)

Madeline Wyndzen, a transgendered psychology professor, writes:

·       "50% of transgenders could be struggling with suicide attempts, regret, anger and unhappiness living in a transgender sub-culture rather than being part of the larger world.”

Does sex-change ever help? Walt Heyer, a detransitioner, in his 2006 book “Trading my Sorrows,” writes about his troubled experiences as a transsexual. The following was culled from his interview with LifeSiteNews.com:

·       Heyer was a little boy growing up in California in the mid 1940s, interested in cowboys, cars and steel guitars when one day, his grandmother fancied that he wanted to be a girl. She naively made for him a purple chiffon evening dress that he would wear when he visited her. According to Walt, donning that purple chiffon dress triggered something that put him on a 35 year long path that led through a dark valley of “torment, disillusionment, regret, and sorrow.” His gender identity confusion led him into alcoholism, drug addiction, and attempted suicide…

Is Heyer’s experience representative of many others? Evidently! A long-term follow-up study of transsexual persons undergoing sex reassignment surgery in Sweden found: 

·       Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, although alleviating gender dysphoria, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group.

Despite all of this, don’t be surprised if you are vilified for raising such concerns. When reason fails to make a case for an errant philosophy, shaming techniques, threats, and even violence are brought forward.

Nevertheless, love should not lead us to encouragement this false and costly hope. Instead, in view of these very obvious costs, love should lead us to compassionately warn.