Outgoing Mail to an Apostolate

To: the COURAGE Apostolate

Dear Sir/Madam

From http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/jun/07062605.html
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COURAGE indicated that it did not support the label of the course because it misleadingly suggests that children are naturally trans-gendered.

“Christian anthropology teaches that we are created male and female—it does not teach that we are created gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered,” said COURAGE.

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See Matthew 19:12

"Transgendered" includes those who are Intersexed, "For there are some eunuchs, which were so born from their mother's womb:".

These people have a hard enough cross to bear without careless theological pronouncements from those who should know better.


"Transgendered" also includes those who are Transsexual, or suffering from "Harry Benjamin's Syndrome".
I also draw your attention to the following two medical articles:

Zhou J.-N, Hofman M.A, Gooren L.J, Swaab D.F (1997)
A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality. (PDF)

See also
Kruijver F.P.M, Zhou J.-N, Pool C.W., Swaab D.F. (2000)
Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus (PDF)

And the evaluation of the Scientific evidence by the Australian Family Court:

"_At paragraph [270]_: ‘But I am satisfied that the evidence now is inconsistent with the distinction formerly drawn between biological factors, meaning genitals, chromosomes and gonads, and merely "psychological factors", and on this basis distinguishing between cases of inter-sex (incongruities among biological factors) and transsexualism (incongruities between biology and psychology)’.

_At paragraph [272]_: ‘In my view the evidence demonstrates (at least on the balance of probabilities) that the characteristics of transsexuals are as much “biological” as those of people thought of as inter-sex’."

The Vatican's statement on the subject in 2003 is of course dogma for now, but hopefully scientific data from 1996 rather than 1976 will be used to correct it in the fullness of time.

What is not in contention though is that Intersexed people exist, that these people are classified as "Transgender", and so the recent pronouncement regarding Christian Anthropology is directly counter to Catholic doctrine, as stated in the 2003 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Homosexuality, Lesbianism, and Bisexuality are irrelevant, except inasmuch as those who are Intersexed - neither fully male nor fully female - require theologically correct Christian guidance as regards moral behaviour. This is particularly important in cases of "serial hermaphroditism" caused by 5 alpha reductase deficiency and other syndromes, where the patient's apparent sex changes over their lifetime. Chromosomes are not definitive guides either - there have been men with 46xx (female) chromosomes who have become fathers, and women with 46xy (male) chromosomes who have borne children. And while most people with 47xxy chromosomes look male, some do not. Again, some have been fathers, others mothers.

I request that you issue a correction to your erroneous statement as soon as possible, in the name of Charity.

God Bless,
Zoe Ellen Brain