And in other news, the American Psychiatric Association has announced the appointment of a member of the Vatican Council to its panel on Gender Identity Disorders.
VOTF means "Voice of the Faithful" by the way.
From the Catholic Herald:
No biological cause of transsexualism has been identified. Rather, the cause appears to stem from psychological development, and thereby transsexualism should be treated with psychotherapy. Interestingly, even after surgery, transsexuals need at least some psychotherapeutic support.Even though such treatment has a 0.0% success rate. What are mere facts against Faith? And now we have someone who has had such wonderful success, totally preventing any paedophilia from ever occurring in the priesthood, as an expert on "Gender Identity". Someone who hasn't published a single paper on the issue.
Finally, a transsexual will never be able to enter validly into the sacrament of Matrimony. A man who undergoes sexual reassignment will never really be a woman, or vice versa; rather, a man will be a man (or a woman will be a woman), except with a mutilated body and profound psychological disordering. Moreover, a transsexual will never be able to consummate the marriage in the fullest expression of love of husband and wife, and never will there be a real openness to life and the creation of children.
To destroy organs purposefully that are healthy and functioning, and to try to create imitation organs which will never have the genuineness and functioning of authentic organs is gross and lacks charity. Such surgery which purposefully destroys the bodily integrity of the person must be condemned.
Nevertheless, individuals suffering from gender dysphoria syndrome must be treated with compassion. They need spiritual counseling which will help them realize the great love of God who loves them as individuals who have been created in His image and likeness. They need proper psychotherapy which will help them to face realistically their human situation and the world, and the consequences of their actions on themselves and their relationships with family and friends. Such counseling will also direct them to spiritual, intellectual and social pursuits to realize their self-worth and divert their preoccupation with sexual identity.
One hopes he will be confined to the subcommittee on sex offenders. No, perhaps not, in view of his spectacular lack of success in the area.
Will he be able to let his medical training and scientific objectivity over-ride official Vatican doctrine on the subject? One can be forgiven for entertaining doubts.
I feel in need of some psychotherapeutic support at the moment, because it seems to me that the Lunatics have taken over the asylum.
UPDATE - had it not been so late when I posted this, I would have cross-checked the reported facts - such as the allegation that he was a member of Opus Dei - with primary sources. And would have found this:
"As a non-Catholic, I was impressed with the deep, genuine concern about the issue, the willingness to be open and listen, and the proactive approach to doing the right thing," Kafka said. "I was very encouraged by this meeting."I won't remove my post, but I will issue this correction. When I get things wrong, as I will sometimes, I shouldn't hide it. Otherwise how can others judge my credibility?
8 comments:
Kafka - how appropriate.
Back in 2000 anyway, Kafka treated and studied paraphiliacs at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. Paraphiliacs, as in, "disorders characterized by persistent deviant sexual arousal"
More recently he procaims himself as, "a pioneer in the diagnosis and pharmacological treatment of hypersexual disorders".
Talk about stacking the deck. A paraphiliac specialist and the creator of the term, Autogynophilia. Why, pretty soon the only people diagnosed with transsexualism will be the children, and they of course can be repaired or converted. Oh, and FtM's, but they don't fall neatly into the GID panel researchers' theories...
Isn't it enough that society thinks that people like this are qualified to make judgement upon us? The fact that those who are our judges dislike us so much from the beginning is enough to give me yet another region to turn to my shrink for help.
I don't need help with being a transsexual woman, I need help accepting that people like this are allowed to be so openly against what I need to do to survive.
Were this not a public forum, I'd be using words which are not at all ladylike.
Sara is correct, Kafka is noted for treating crossdressers with anti-depressants (esp. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors such as Celexa), and claims to have a high success rate. In reality, he's just dealing with the distress part, and making it easier to submerge identities again, and live in denial.
I've seen a number of others make this (Opus Dei) assumption too. Things like this are making it difficult to work too closely with the more energetic of advocates, as you might also be seeing. It's sometimes too tempting in the rush to get the information out to run with these things before being certain, kind of like the Accord Alliance pledge to the LWPES Consensus Statement, where the older surgery-advocating one is being referred to mistakenly. I've botched it on a couple of news items recently myself. Just means we have to be more careful and diligent in who we listen to. :)
Take care. I respect your work.
O. M. G. That Dark Dungeons link is just plain hilarious.
Zoe, I've been following links to your posts from other sites from time to time and decided this Holiday weekend (yes, I'm a Revolting Colonist) to go back and read all your posts about your amazing transition--which I've just finished doing. I'll be sending you a personal email about that in a bit but just want to say here in public, from the bottom of my heart, thanks for all you do--for being so open and honest about yourself, and for your energetic efforts on behalf of human rights and reason.
And also for the grins and giggles you throw in from time to time to lighten the mood. Just, O. M. G. :)
hmm, the dark dungeons was less than hilarious for me. As an ex D&D addict, I've seen some pretty brutal things done by players to other players, such as killing someone's character because of a falling out between the players. People get attached to their characters, and this can be a traumatic event.
Laugh away but it's true.
You can really mess someone up in D&D land.
Of course, I don't agree with the message contained in the cartoon, that it leads people to become evil. It's not a road to the occult or anything!
I haven't looked at the D&D site, but...well, the reason I really became a Christian was an RPG. My dad's a pastor, I knew all the doctrine and such, but the capsule form of the reason for taking the step is that I realized my usual thief character got gold, but my paladin was more fun.
In the course of history we have seen groups segregated and every evil committed. Why should we not see this any other way? We are approaching a time where those who are so frustrated over their inability to come to self and acceptance that they are looking to others to feign that pain. The freaks are always selected for persecution..... Problem is that normal cannot be defined!
Post a Comment