Chaz Bono is the son of Cher and Sonny Bono. While growing up, he says he always felt uncomfortable and, after years of feeling out of place, he realised he was not Chastity but Chaz. And so he came out as transgendered and initiated the transition from female to male.
I think Chaz Bono represents what is wrong with culture today. Not because (s)he is a bad person. But rather (s)he is a beacon of how much political correctness and political activism has influenced medicine today. Human sexuality has become selectively idolized to the point where discussing whether certain sexual desires are immoral, has itself become immoral. I say selective because there remain some sexual desires which society still expects people to suppress (even though they may have been “born that way“), and others are defended seemingly to the death. But what has this political correctness gotten us? It has gotten us individuals such as Chaz Bono. My intention is not to single out Bono. (S)he just happens to be one of the more public and recognizable transgendered individuals.
The reason I have heard most for why someone might seek to surgically change one’s sex from male to female and vice versa is for the reason Bono gives above. The person believes psychologically, they are “trapped” in the wrong gendered body. Political activists have kept the public at bay by shouting down anyone who may think people like Bono need a psychiatrist instead of a scalpel. Homosexuality, bi-sexuality, and those who believe they are the wrong sex have been protected by protest. In other words, it is considered wrong to suggest that homosexual, bi-sexual, or transgender people might benefit from psychological help.
More pointedly, I find it disturbing, and disappointing the way political activists, and those they enlist to their cause through coercion treat transgender people. The situation seems to be, someone, a man for example, believes they are a woman psychologically, but have been placed in the wrong physical body. But rather than seeking psychological treatment in order to feel more in-line with their physical body, they are encouraged to surgically mutilate their body and suppress their physical attributes with hormone therapy.
Why is it assumed that the physical, and not the mental is what is in need of alteration? Why has it become an improper response to suggest that one’s body is correct, and it is the mind which must be changed? At what point did sexual desires and one’s psychological state when it comes to sexuality, become properly incorrigible? But again, this seems selectively so. After all, what if a person genuinely believed they were meant to have only one arm instead of two? Furthermore, what if they sought the approval of their parents to have one of their arms surgically removed; would loving parents secure a surgeon to remove a properly functioning arm simply because the person truly believed they were meant to be in a body with only one arm? Of course not. We would rightly condemn anyone who fostered such a notion. We would demand the person who desired one arm seek therapy, there is obviously a problem with the psychological make-up of someone who would suggest the only way for them to feel comfortable in their own body is to surgically amputate an arm.
We would rightly suggest that someone is immoral and in need of help if they do not restrain their promiscuity; even if they were to claim they were born with the desire to have sex with as many people as they possibly could. We rightly suggest someone is immoral for desiring to be unfaithful to their spouse. We do not afford them the right to claim moral benignity because the behavior is consistent with their sexual desires. We do not stigmatize those for suggesting these people need help.
It is in this respect that I find a lack of credibility when a political activist suggests all (some) sexual desires are “normal” and claim medical diagnosis as their authority. What is normal about suggesting that when one’s psychological desires conflict with their physical body, it is better to submit the body to the mind? I think as society placates the LGBT activists (for fear of being labeled ‘bigot’ or ‘homophobe’) it actually does more harm to the individual experiencing GID. Human sexuality should not be so untouchable that open honest discussion (of the repercussions of certain sexual behaviors, or suggesting psychological help is needed) is stifled for political reasons to the detriment of the people it hurts most.
Sifting Reality 
Chaz is a she, and will always be a she. She can mutilate her body all she likes, but she will still be a she.
How ironic that the LGBTQX alphabet soup of perversions don’t see the mockery Chaz makes of the “born that way” argument. The way she was born is female, and yet she shakes her fist at God and mutilates herself.
What a sad case. I pray that she comes to know the Lord and repents of her mockery of God.
Faggot.
John…
it is considered wrong to suggest that homosexual, bi-sexual, or transgender people might benefit from psychological help.
It is considered wrong to suggest that because that is where the science has led us. There is no medical nor psychological REASON to consider that gay or transgendered folk need psychological help. If someone had a bad appendix, would you second guess the medical experts (Well, that person doesn’t need their appendix removed, they just need psychological help…)? No. Because there is no sound logical real-world reason to think they need psychological help for a medical need.
Chaz is, he feels, working on being the person he needs to be and it’s not really anyone else’s business, is it? At least if he’s not harming anyone else, and he does not appear to be.
Neil calls becoming what God made a “mockery” of God. Strange, that. I would think that living INTO who God made us to be would be a pleasing thing and not something to demonize. It’s just really not anybody’s business.
No it isn’t. It is where activists have led the psychiatric profession through protest and harassment.
So you think that the APA and the AMA is full of people who’d just make research up to please some portion of society?
The facts are that “homosexuality” nor “transgenderism” meet the definition of mental illness. They just don’t. Are you suggesting that the APA ought to make up definitions to please religious protestors and harrassment? That does not seem very professional or rational.
Well when the peolle responsible for determining the matter are homosexual and have been openly political activists on the issue, it might make you skeptical of the conclusions.
And are you unaware of circumstances surrounding removing homosexuality from the list of mental disorders?
Yes, I’m quite aware of the history of how homosexuality was considered a mental illness at one time – due to a lack of information and non-research based biases – and why we moved away from considering it such.
When you say “the people responsible… were gay…” I have to wonder what you’re basing that on? Are you suggesting that the whole of the APA – the group that removed homosexuality from their list of mental illnesses – were gay? Surely you’re not saying that, since that’s obviously not the case.
Also, if the APA held their positions due to protest and harassment, then wouldn’t they change their position again due to the GREATER protest and harassment they’d get from a much larger segment of society (conservative Christians)?
Do you have any evidence to support this rather outrageous and conspiratorial claim (that a professional group made up of tens of thousands of individuals from across the political and social spectrum would place people in mental danger due to political pressure)?
I’ll get you some citations (I’m at ork right now). It sounds like you aren’t aware of the controversy within the APA on this matter.
John, save yourself the work. I have a mental illness background. I’ve read about the topic. I’m familiar with the history (or are you suggesting there’s some secret cabal who’ve managed to fool everyone into missing the “real” history) on this topic?
Again, the fact is that “homosexuality” does not meet the objective criteria for mental illness.
Are YOU familiar with what does and doesn’t constitute “mental illness” and with psychology, in general?
So then you are either unfamiliar or are hoping others are unaware that homosexuality was taken off the mental illness list due to political pressure from homosexual advocates and was voted on, rather than debating the merits of whether it did or didn’t fulfill the conditions after full medical debate with a general concensus.
Let me ask you this, what about feeling the only remedy to not feeling “normal” is the need to mutilate your body’s sexual organs in order to “feel” normal, is normal?
Sex changes here in Finland are made only after carefull and long lasting examination by psychologists.
There are thousands and thousands of women and men in the world who have plastic surgery to “enhance” their appearance or sexual organs without any other doctor to evaluate their situation than the plastic surgeon earning millions in a year on these people. There are even children in their teens among them. Has anyone even suggested, that a person who wants to have breast implants, or a “rejuvenation” of a vagina, or a elongation of a penis should first enter psychologist evaluation?
Homosexual behavior = sin. Transgenders saying God “made them that way” is is a sign of idiotic thinking, not a mental illness.
The “born that way” canard fails on so many levels, starting with the Bible. Just take it to its logical conclusions: Gay-bashers could claim that God made them that way. They just always felt the need to bully gays, even from a young age. I wouldn’t buy that excuse, but hey, their logic is the same: If you have these desires, God must have given them to you, even if they contradict the Bible.
It IS true that some Christians think that all homosexual behavior = sin. Not all would agree. There are many who say it is self-evidently a good and blessed thing to have committed, adult, loving, respectful marriage, gay or straight.
You are free to disagree. We Christians who believe in gay marriage obviously disagree with you.
Nonetheless, homosexuality is NOT a mental illness, not by the observable, rational evidence for those who have no agenda. It’s just not. There is no secret conspiracy afoot. It’s just not a mental illness.
On the issue of sin, we just have to disagree. I can’t “prove” to you I’m right and you can’t “prove” to me you’re right. We’ll have to trust God to work that out.
Ok, its partially my fault that I let you get off track. Lets try something novel and stick to the topic of transgender individuals and their advocates claim that it is normal and good to mutilate their body to conform with their mind, rather than conform their mind to their body.
I was merely responding to your comment, John, suggesting that it’s considered “wrong” to suggest gay and transgendered folk need mental help. It’s considered “wrong” simply for the reason that being gay or transgendered is not a mental illness. It’d be like if someone said, “You know, that person is a fundamentalist Christian… I think he needs mental help.” – they are both similarly goofy thoughts because neither fundamentalism nor being transgendered is a mental illness.
Isn’t that a reasonable statement?
No, its chock full of flawed assumptions and is in no way analogous whatsoever.
Flawed, how?
“Homosexuality” or “transgenderism” are NOT mental illnesses.
“Christian fundamentalism” is NOT a mental illness.
Where does the analogy fail?
You sometimes seem to want to disagree just to be disagreeable, John. I don’t see the need for that. Or is it the case that, despite what the experts say, YOU think that “transgenderism” and “homosexuality” are mental illnesses?
If so, what are your credentials for making such a claim? How many years have you studied psychology? What research have you conducted or even read?
Are you suggesting that in order for me to conclude that GID is a mental disorder, I must be a psychiatrist? Cant I read opinions of credentialed experts from both sides of the issue and come to a determination?
Or are you suggesting that everyone should believe in geocentrism and flat earth until they can go into space and see for themselves or become astronomers?
You’re just being rediculous.
The reason they are not analogous is because, you and other homosexual advocates claim it is genetic, and not chosen to any degree. Religious belief is a chosen belief.
That’s a fine hunch you have there, John, but in truth, sexual orientation is not factually a chosen thing, for the most part (one might argue that for those born bisexual that there is an element of choice in who they choose to date). Do you have a single shred of evidence to believe that homosexuality is a chosen thing?
Did you CHOOSE to be heterosexual? Could you CHOOSE to like the other sex under any circumstances? Of course not, it’s innate.
So then you admit your previous analogy was in fact NOT analogous. If you believe sexual desire is NOT CHOSEN, then unless you believe religious affiliation IS ALSO NOT CHOSEN, then you are wrong go compare religious fundamentalism and sexual desire.
Neil, what you say about sin may be true, but it is controversial. I doubt, if there is a Bible passage about sex change. Is it wrong to be homosexual, or to wish to change your sex? That should not determined by any old book, or any particular superstition. In a modern society the difference between what is right and wrong (in other words what is moral) is defined by what harm that action, feeling, need, or inaction will cause. Homosexuality does not cause any harm, nor does sex change operation, if the person is otherwise balanced. Therefore they are not immoral, as such.
“Gay bashing” is an attack against a particular group of people. If it is caused by mental instability, is debatable, but it causes actual harm and is therfore immoral.
You are wrong about homosexuality not causing harm. It does so mentally and physically.
This is a false testimony, John. “Homosexuality” is an orientation, like heterosexuality, and in and of itself, is not harmful. It’s just not.
The problem is you keep offering up unsupported claims as if it were a foregone conclusion.
I’m sure what you would offer up, if you TRIED to offer up support for such a claim, is instances of hypersexuality – licentiousness – which we mostly could agree causes harm – gay or straight – but that is not evidence that homosexuality itself causes harm. It simply factually does not.
That’s like saying pointing a loaded gun at your head and pulling the trigger does not cause harm, its the bullet.
Homosexuality leads to homosexual sexual relations, which leads to an incredibly disproportionate amount of physical, emotional, and mental harm.
“Is it wrong to be homosexual, or to wish to change your sex? That should not determined by any old book, or any particular superstition.”
It should if the book was authored by God. You statement begs the question.
If there is no God, you have no grounding for any moral claims. It is just your personal opinion, which happens to agree with your culture.
“In a modern society the difference between what is right and wrong (in other words what is moral) is defined by what harm that action, feeling, need, or inaction will cause.”
Appeals to a “modern” society are meaningless: Every society was “modern” when it existed. That is your definition of what is moral, but it has no universal grounding. Anyone without physical or legislative power could trump you. Survival of the fittest and all that.
The Bible was written by man. If those who wrote the Bible (or the characters in this work of fiction) claim to have heard the voice of God, then they should have seen a psychologist.
Thank you for your unsubstantiated opinion. But just because the Bible was written by man says nothing about whether the content is true. After all your comment was written by man, what does that tell us about the truth of your comment? Nothing.
Second, I made no reference to the bible here or anywhere else when discussing the issue of homosexuality or same-sex marriage. This makes your comment completely off topic. If you care to address my commentary on its merits, I’d be happy to. But let’s not introduce objections and criticisms of arguments I haven’t made.
“The Bible was written by man. If those who wrote the Bible (or the characters in this work of fiction) claim to have heard the voice of God, then they should have seen a psychologist.”
If it was only written by men then they were really, really, very lucky men. They “guessed” that the universe came into being at a point in time. Call it a coin-flip if you like, but they weren’t shy about it (Genesis 1:1 and elsewhere) and it wasn’t the norm to think that then.
They “guessed” that the number of stars were akin to the number of grains of sand a couple thousand years before people realized there were more than ~1,100 stars.
They “guessed” very specific properties of constellations thousands of years before science discovered them (Job).
They predicted the rise and fall of the Greek empire with such accuracy that skeptics concede agree that the text was accurate — only the skeptics insist that the writings were done after the fact (how convenient, and demonstrably false).
And so on.
I’d do some research before dismissing the Bible. Eternity is a mighty long time.
Sorry about the offtopic John, but this is interresting so I ask, which Greek empire are you referring to, Neil? Guessing there are as many stars as grains of sand was a sort of lucky guess or a metaphora for there being a lot of stars, just like guessing that the ark was grounded on mount Ararat after the flood was an unlucky guess. Guessing the universe started on a particular moment was a guess, just like guessing the world was “created” in seven days was a particularly unlucky guess. Like tossing a coin on the bronze age knowledge…
Survival of the fittest for the social animals like humans is a far more complex thing you seem to understand. However, morality is not based on lucky guesses, or people claiming to have contact whith the supernatural, the morality all those people offer is so contradicting, depending on which particular supernatural beings they claim to have engaged and how they have interpreted the cryptic messages these gods and spirits have offered them. Even if the base of morals was actually drawn from a message from a particular god, we would need to define which of all the gods was moral, right? How do we achieve that? We must have a way to define which god is right about justified morals. Choosing a random set of rules, or a random god leads us to nowhere. So to claim a particular god is just and moral, we must first decide what is just and moral. That is done by defining what action, or inaction causes harm. If your gods commands cause harm, it is not a just or moral god. It really is that simple. Claiming something is moral just because a particular god says so, or demands that from us, does not make anything moral. By that claim any god could be moral. It is the ultimate circular claim to say one god holds base for morals, because that god says so.
John Barron Jr, homosexuality does not cause the harm you define. Otherwise it would cause it to all homosexuals. As you propably know this is not so. There are other reasons combined whith homosexuality that cause the harm you describe and as you must know, those other reasons combined whith heterosexuality cause the same harm.
“Guessing there are as many stars as grains of sand was a sort of lucky guess or a metaphora for there being a lot of stars,”
Thanks for trying, but that is one of your many fails on this topic and a big tip-off to your lack of serious research. In the interest of time I’ll just point out this one while noting that you skipped the Job example. When people make metaphors, they typically don’t equate ~1,100 with billions, and they don’t do it multiple times.
“morality is not based on lucky guesses”
Who said it was? That’s a straw man on your part.
“Survival of the fittest for the social animals like humans is a far more complex thing you seem to understand.”
I understand that it isn’t always the most fit that survive (just blogged on another Darwinian double-speak this week). I understand that your made-up morality is in contradiction to survival of the fittest (I’m glad you are inconsistent; too bad slave-owners, pro-legalized abortion lobby, Hitler, et al took your worldview to its logical conclusions).
“‘So to claim a particular god is just and moral, we must first decide what is just and moral.”
That’s backwards. You’d be creating a god in your own image that way, which is just as bad as pretending that He doesn’t exist.
“That is done by defining what action, or inaction causes harm.”
That’s question begging. You haven’t grounded why harm is bad. Are locusts immoral for not leaving some food behind? Are lions harmful for eating slow wildebeest?
And before you try to create a fairy tale where we evolved to have universal morality, please remember that your worldview says we evolve for the ability to survive, not to discern truth. You have no reason to believe that you are capable of discerning truth. In your fictional account we should have more similar ethics, but as you note we do not.
Greek empire = Alexander the Great
” It is the ultimate circular claim to say one god holds base for morals, because that god says so.”
If you have a job, be sure to tell your boss that it is circular logic for him to create workplace rules for you to follow. Then disobey them and don’t expect consequences. Let me know how that works out.
Last comment, because I realized I’ve gotten way off topic. (Sorry, John!)
“guessing the world was “created” in seven days was a particularly unlucky guess”
1. As if you knew how it was created.
2. You already conceded that the Bible uses metaphors (the creator of the universe is allowed to use those), so why would you be so literal about the seven 24 hour days? Since you’ve done your research so well you know that many Christians don’t interpret it that way. (Side note: I’ve noticed how the skeptics and fake Christians love to call Bible-believing Christians literalists, yet they reflexively do that when it suits them. We, on the other hand, read in context and understand that the Bible contains different types of literature.)
“That is done by defining what action, or inaction causes harm.”
So you must be super-duper-anti-abortion, because it is established science that a human being is created at conception — http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq (And common sense, of course — what else would two human beings create?)
And it is pretty obvious that abortions, by definition, cause great harm to human beings.
I know you won’t abandon science to jump to bad philosophy about how the unborn aren’t “persons.” And you definitely won’t blather about “forcing” women to stay pregnant against their will, as if that utilitarian approach could ever make the “harm” of being pregnant a few more months greater than the harm of crushing and dismembering a completely innocent human being. Because if that is the case, you shouldn’t pull up the drawbridge when others rationalize causing harm under the guise of preventing more harm.
So I’m glad you are on the side of life!
Neil, the abortion question has been conversed elswhere, and as you know, our host hates of topic conversations. You know I do not agree whith you on that and calling it out was a cheap shot. I am not going to explain to you here how the survival of the fittest works, nor how abortion fits the picture, but as you know, I support the womens right to have an abortion, because it is a case of lesser harm against a greater harm. You have the right to evaluate the harm done in an abortion greater, but the morals of the issue is still judged by the harm caused, not by some cryptic ancient scripture.
Alexander the great was Macedonian and he ruled over Greece, Egypt and Persia. His followers and most of his soldiers were Macedonian. There never existed any actual Greek empire. But if the Bible had claimed that there will be a Macedonian empire, or even that there shall be a Roman empire, it would still have been just a lucky guess. If the Bible had told us that there will be an Inka empire, that would be a guess requiring some serious explanation to do. The greeks were a growing and prominent economical and military power in the world known by the people of Levant in biblical times, so making a guess that the greek will once be mighty, would have been less miraculous than guessing the Americans will be a prominent power in the world after your war of independence. And many did make that guess without any divine guidance.
Faith is a form of guessing. One who has faith on a supernatural entity to follow rules known to humanity is guessing something to be the absolute truth. But there are a lot of different faiths and they do contradict each other in moral issues. How do you know which religion has the true morals? How do you define that, if you define what is right by some random religion? Have you just made a lucky guess, or possibly an unlucky guess on what is the right set of rules? People who define morals according to some ancient tome, or religion freighten me, since it is as if they had no conciense of their own, or like they did not care, or even understand what causes harm or not. Funny that, I allways thought that what Jesus taught was not to listen to the pharisees, but to do the right thing according to your conciense, and not by the evaluation of those who claim to know the scriptures. Have I mistaken greatly about Jesus? Was he not the great philosopher I thought he was?
So, how long were the seven days? No, I do not know how the universe came to be, but neither do you Neil. You are guessing it was a supernatural being that caused it to exist, right? There is no way you could know it. My point of view is, that the best we can know about this matter today, is what the scientists have guessed. However, their guesses are a lot more educated than what the priesthood of the bronce age Levant could achieve and strech to a bit longer period of time than anything to be explained as seven days, even as a metaphor.
If there are metaphors in the Bible as you say, how do you know for sure, that banning homosexuality is not simply a metaphor when placed into context? There are good number of christians who seem to think so. Is there a metaphor in the Bible that forbids sex change operations? There are no literal passages about the issue are there? Might there be a literal passage or metaphor that forbids breast implants? What about breast implants on a minor or breast implants on a cancer victim?
Your workingplace rules anecdote would only work to religious morals, if there are multiple people claiming to know the boss, all giving different sets of rules and often in such a cryptic manner, that most workers do not even stand a chance to have a clue what they are supposed to mean. Remember that these are all bosses that never visit at the workplace to explain their rules. Or maybe the son of one boss once did, some 2000 years ago! Well even if it says so in the memo, it still is just a workplace rumour. Actually many workers have not even heard of most of the sets of rules, or even of all the people claimed to be a boss, and though some workers are claiming to apply the same set of rules, they have understood them completely diffrently. Also many of the workingplace rules contradict each other and a good number of them seem to be quite immoral or even illegal. On such a working place how do you define who is the actual boss? What are the actual rules? You have to have a nother means of finding out who is the actual boss, rather than simply choosing a random alledged boss and set of rules.
Morality is something mainly used to define human actions, therefore locusts are not defined moral or immoral though often as harmfull. They are not sentient beings making moral choises and have nothing to be called culture or morals. On the other hand the locusts also have their place in their economical niche, so their actions are not “harmfull” as such, but meaningfull. Did you not know this?
Rautakyy and Neil, you can take it to the new discussion page
Why not change the mind? Because changing the mind fails at best and sometimes makes people kill themselves due to self-hate, ostracism, and the depression that comes with an impossible task. The American Psychological Association is pretty well educated and experienced and they recommend reassignment physically and treatment only for unpleasant feelings due to discrimination – that’s you. Notice that “GID” is a diagnosis only to ensure treatment, not to imply that having different physical and mental gender identities is somehow wrong.
http://www.apa.org/topics/sexuality/transgender.aspx
You keep accusing me of hate and discrimination. Not only is it unfounded, but will not be countenanced much further.
I think the APA is wrong. There are plenty of psychologists and psychiatrists who believe so as well. Of course it would seem that you would say they are all bigots and haters, but that doesn’t deal with the issue. Whether I or anyone hate anyone else has nothing to do with the moral goodness or badness of a behavior.
First of all, I’d like to say that I’m not name-calling to inflame the discussion. I’m sure you’re a nice guy most of the time. It’s just important to understand the damage you do with this anti-gay argument. I’m limiting this comment only to your denial of homosexuality and equal rights. I do agree that this is to draw your attention to the argument, but it’s not the argument.
You think the APA is wrong, but that’s how science works. Laypersons and fringe, biased personnel have certain different opinions, but it’s really important to focus on the science and how different methods work. And in a practical sense, there is no effective treatment for “curing” gays. It reliably causes mental anguish and that’s why the APA and psychology schools reject any effort to engage in that sort of “reparative” therapy.
I wrote elsewhere why homosexuality and even homosexual behavior has not immoral. And in this case, even if it were immoral, it still doesn’t have a cure. Pedophiles for example can’t be ‘cured’, yet what they intend is in fact immoral. The approach is not to try to make them not want to have sex with kids, which doesn’t work, but to help them cope with their condition without engaging in the immoral acts that they desire (or lock them up). The difference is that homosexual conduct involves two loving and consenting adults and pedophilia involves an abuse of power and an unprepared child. That’s why it’s bad, not because of scripture.
But this all assumes that anyone who disagrees has an immoral bias. As if credible professionals cannot possibly make a professional assessment that homosexual and transgender desires are not good. In fact it is not only laymen who believe such things.
Second, how do you determine that same sex attraction is a good thing?
You made some great points here, John. I never considered them. Of course it is a psychiatric problem to address why one feels they are not the gender God made them.
Dan makes his typical backward logic by stating, “Neil calls becoming what God made a “mockery” of God. Strange, that.”
I submit that calling what God calls an abomination to Himself “blessed” is strange.
Thanks Mark. It is indeed strange the way some ideas are justified. Unfortunately political correctness and the self-esteem movement has created a couple generations of “What, me wrong? How dare you suggest such a thing!” As if a proper litmus test of truth is ‘creating no offense’ rather than ‘comports with reality’.
When did transsexuality focus from ‘fixing’ the mind to ‘fixing’ the body? When it was realised that these people really are ‘men in a woman’s body’, or vice versa. It’s not some arbitrary decision due to Political Correctness, it’s a long shift by the accrual of evidence.
Why is it so hard to consider the possibility that sexual reassignment surgery is, in fact, right and Godly? God, apparently, gives people all sorts of bodies – just look at Harlequin Syndrome – and we have no qualms fixing our bodily ills with glasses, orthodontic surgery, false teeth, prosthetics, etc. Why is sexual reassignment any different?
The reason, of course, is obvious: religion has a rabid phobia of anything sexual. “If you’re not using your genitals for procreation, you’re doing it wrong” is the mantra of the faithful, and what a wonderful world that policy has given us – an Africa full of HIV/AIDS, children of both gender’s being mutilated by the thousands, anyone with a non-heterosexual orientation being shunned, abused, and killed, etc.
Dave
Thanks for the comments. But you should note that I never offered religion as a foundation for this position. You introduced it. It doesn’t suit you well to attempt to dismiss and refute an argument I didn’t make.
But sexuality is different than faulty eyesight. You need glasses because the eyes are not properly working. You need a wheel chair because your legs are not properly working.
However, the sexual organs are properly working with transsexuals, but it is the mind that is not conforming to a properly functioning body. There is no reason to believe that the body is what needs fixing, since it isn’t broken. It is the mind that is broken.
Unless you are trying to argue that a person’s mind is never in need of fixing. Is that what you’re saying? That the mind never malfunctions?