Wednesday 1 April 2009

Catholic Answers

An interesting and productive dialogue has been going on over at the Catholic Answers Forum. There's a number of threads of interest-

Transsexualism - why is it so despised?
What is the Church's position on the Intersexed and Transsexed?
Sex-change: Hypothetical situation
Is transgender a sin?
Theology of the Body--as it relates to transgender
Overcoming Transgender Issues

Apart from the usual misconceptions and misinformed opinion, in general TS and IS people have been treated far more respectfully there than on many other religious forums. We've reached a few people. Now if they weren't so rabidly homophobic... oh well, we're trying to deal with that too. Difficult when we're straight, with a touch of homophobia ourselves too. Some of us. I think mine is now mainly a thing of the past. I hope so, anyway.

7 comments:

sumptos devil s advocate said...

agangbern is an idiot. I hate that person, because that person seems to lack any sense of logic and is clearly the kind of person who will take something that vaguely sorta agrees with her views and run with it very very FAST and FAR. I don't know about transsexuality's legitimacy as a condition, but I think I know idiocy when I see it.

Can someone go send a proxy PM for me to agangbern saying something vageuly like the below?

I say that any person who doesn't produce sperm and never has is female because of that verse in Genesis and the fact that God only created male and female and didn't intend for the existence of a third sex--oh yeah--and this definition of male from Webster's Dictionary given below.

"an individual that produces small usually motile gametes (as spermatozoa or spermatozoids) which fertilize the eggs of a female"

I would be willing to engage in a debate through this proxy poster with you, where I would repeat my point over and over again without proving it and simply say "No it isn't because of my point" again and again in response to your points.

autogynephiliac? said...

Hi Zoe, I wonder if you ever dealt with this kind of emotion before. There is this story I'm interested in, it's about a girl in elementary school and she's basically based on how the author of the story was when she was a kid (sorta like a female Charlie Brown) and she's very thoughtful and she daydreams (sorta like how I was as a kid). And I see myself in her, but then I also see that she is very good socially, which I never really was, but she's not very girlish (though she likes to be frilly sometimes) and I can identify with that. So I like reading those stories.

But then I think about the author's life later on, as she has stories detailing other areas of her childhood, and some of her stories detail her first period and the first boy she had a crush on. I also know the author has given birth and I realize what I never had and never will have. Then I read what is written on Second-Type Woman and realize that I'm never going to have it. It's like the character in that story is so similar and yet so different. I can't fathom it. I'm just like her personality-wise and in these areas, but I can't have a baby like her?

Do you see my point? What is this emotion? Is it envy?

Zoe Brain said...

Yes it is.

Talk to some other women who can't get pregnant some time. Most of us have it.

What the Catholic Church calls the sin of "Envy", I call "jealousy" - meaning "I want that, and I want to take it away from current possessor."

What I call "envy" is "Oh, I wish I had that too!".

Just remember that you don't have to be TS to feel like this. Many of us got the "second prize" of fatherhood, so we should count our blessings compared to other women who can't have children.

Bad hair days said...

I read the "despised" thread fully, but that took hours, I wont read the rest.
It was interessting to see what happened, when it set in that TS is not a sexual perversion (usually seen as ultimate homosexuality by so many people) but a medical condition.

I think what makes it so much easier for me in switzerland is that there where some good tv features on the theme (and that sexuality itself is not so stigmatized over here).

Zoe Brain said...

SDA - what would be the point?

There's three reasons to engage in debate. In ascending order of importance, they are:

1. To educate an ignorant opponent.
2. To be educated yourself.
3. To educate bystanders, who by seeing the contrast between your own reasoned arguments, and your opposition's irrational ravings, can be led to see things your way.

I think he's impervious to 1).
I don't think he has anything worth saying.
And to engage in private, as opposed to public, discussion would just be a waste of time, since there's no audience.

Note that if your opposition is *not* irrationally raving, then you might learn something from them, or they from you.

autogynephiliac? said...

Thank you for your response, Zoe. "Just remember that you don't have to be TS to feel like this." Do men who aren't TS feel like this too?

autogynephiliac? said...

Bump. :-)