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Is transitioning (transgender) a sin?

Kelly of the Phoenix

Kelly of the Phoenix

Well-Known Member
I think it's a sin as much as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly is a sin or when a clownfish changes from male to female. Nature transforms. We're part of nature.
 
Prestor John

Prestor John

Well-Known Member
Kelly of the Phoenix said:
I think it's a sin as much as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly is a sin or when a clownfish changes from male to female. Nature transforms. We're part of nature.
Click to expand...
Nature isn't the best litmus test for what is right or wrong.

No animals in nature mutilate their genitals and expect other animals to believe they are the opposite sex.
 
Nyingjé Tso

Nyingjé Tso

Tänpa Yungdrung zhab pä tän gyur jig
Prestor John said:
....
Click to expand...

Vanakkam Prestor

Here's my two cents for you:
Hounding and necroing all the threads about Transsexuality , as far as in the feminism section, to spew a line or two of disagreement will not do good to you at all.

Wanna share your view and discuss or ? Why not creating a thread for debate in the appropriate section ? This will look more like "I wanna share my views and debate with others opinions" rather than "I'll just mass post grumpy one liners in every dead thread that shows up when I type "trans" in the search bar"

One gives the "I actually want to debate about this" Vibe, the other looks more like "I'm a stalking creep with not much to talk to offer"

Just a suggestion tho

Aum Namah Shivaya
 
sojourner

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Saint Frankenstein said:
If a person who suffers from gender/sex dysphoria transitions, is it a sin for them to transition?

To my mind, transgenderism/transsexuality poses a problem to Christian anthropology as regards the sexes. Traditional Christianity teaches that God made humanity as male and female. That is the primal identity for a human being. Everything else follows from that. So your soul is either male or female because the body and the soul are both required to make up a complete human being (hence the notion of the Resurrection over something like reincarnation, which treats the body as a disposable facade). So if you're a man, you're a man because your soul is male and because your body proclaims you ad such. It's an intrinsic reality. Same for females.

So how are transsexuals supposed to figure into this? The best theory about it that science has is the brain of the fetus is hit with a large amount of the hormones of the opposite sex while in the womb. This causes the brain to either masculinize or femininize. It creates the dysphoria since the brain expects the body to be one thing but it's the other. Only hormonal and surgical intervention has been proven to help, so far.

In this view, transsexualism is a sex differentiation disorder, a neurological condition - a medical condition at the root of it. It's not a mental illness or a delusion. (I'm only speaking about transsexualism here because I don't really understand things like non-binary, degender, trans people who don't want to transition or whatever else that's under the "trans umbrella" and science hasn't said anything about them, as far as I know. It's not my reality, either.)

So how would such a person fit into Christian anthropology of the sexes? Were they meant to be the sex that is encoded in their chromosomes and it is destroying God's creation to tamper with it? What about the fact the brain more closely matches the brain of the identified sex? You can't just throw the science of it out, emerging as it may be.

Can a male soul become incarnate in a female body and vice versa? People are born with all manner of congenital birth defects and other mishaps, including being intersex which transsexualism may well be a sort of intersex condition. Christianity teaches that all bodily defects and problems will be fixed after the Resurrection when humanity receives glorified bodies. Might that be the case for transsexuals? Might we finally receive bodies that match our brains and souls?

All I know that is Christianity had better start thinking about this issue in a logical way. I have seen no real attempts from the Catholic or Orthodox Churches to address this issue in a theological way. If they say that it is a sin to transition, then you throw the science out the window and condemn transsexuals who have transitioned to lives of being outcast from church communities and humiliation. After all, after a certain point in transitioning, you can't really detransition. If you say it is fine, you still have to square it with the theology surrounding the creation of male and female.

Personally I see being transsexual as a medical condition or a birth defect of sorts. I'm not really proud of it and just wish my body and mind were in alignment. I don't think of it as spitting in the face of God (I love God even if I don't understand Him/Her), but as treating a medical condition. If the Resurrection is true, I pray that God will have mercy on me and other transsexuals.
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I think you hit the nail on the head with the quote from Genesis, and then you completely ignored it. The verse says that we are created "male AND female," not "male OR female." That means we all have elements of both, and modern psychology bears this out. As human beings, we're more gender fluid than many suspect, or are able to accept. In fact, some Native American tribes had six or seven "genders." Our cultural gender concepts are extremely black and white either/or, whereas I believe they should be at least somewhat "both/and."
 
sojourner

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Prestor John said:
Nature isn't the best litmus test for what is right or wrong.

No animals in nature mutilate their genitals and expect other animals to believe they are the opposite sex.
Click to expand...
Yah, except that 1) some animals are naturally hermaphroditic, 2) some animals spontaneously change sex, and 3) no other species is gifted with the level of creativity and imagination that we are.
 
1

1213

Well-Known Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
...
Can a male soul become incarnate in a female body and vice versa? ....
Click to expand...

Can you explain what ”male soul” means? If gender is something else than biological gender, how could it be defined? Nowadays people claim what women can do what ever men do and there is not real difference between men and women. So, how can anyone claim to be something else than biological gender, if there is no boundaries between men and women?
 
Skwim

Skwim

Veteran Member
Saint Frankenstein said:
I say it's a disorder because medically it is.
Click to expand...
(WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019 (HealthDay News)Transgender people will no longer be classified as having a mental disorder by the World Health Organization.

WHO officials voted to move the term they use for transgender people -- gender incongruence -- from its mental disorders chapter to its sexual health chapter in the 11th revision of its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11), CNNreported.
source

We wouldn't get on hormones or have surgery to correct things if something wasn't wrong in the first place.
Click to expand...
"Wrong" is probably now considered a bad choice of words. In light of the WHO decision above I believe "different," or "uncommon" are far better descriptors.

.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
1213 said:
Can you explain what ”male soul” means? If gender is something else than biological gender, how could it be defined? Nowadays people claim what women can do what ever men do and there is not real difference between men and women. So, how can anyone claim to be something else than biological gender, if there is no boundaries between men and women?
Click to expand...
This thread is old. When I referred to souls having a sex, I was referring to the Christian belief that a human person is a body and a soul, and that the soul has a sexual identity (a maleness or femaleness to it) given to it by God.

I do believe there are differences between men and women, biologically and psychologically. I don't think you'll come across many trans people who don't think there are. Maybe some in the "non-binary" crowd, I don't know. :rolleyes: I view transsexualism as a medical condition. Just being on hormone treatment shows that maleness and femaleness are very different experiences.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Skwim said:
(WEDNESDAY, May 29, 2019 (HealthDay News)Transgender people will no longer be classified as having a mental disorder by the World Health Organization.

WHO officials voted to move the term they use for transgender people -- gender incongruence -- from its mental disorders chapter to its sexual health chapter in the 11th revision of its International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-11), CNNreported.
source


"Wrong" is probably now considered a bad choice of words. In light of the WHO decision above I believe "different," or "uncommon" are far better descriptors.

.
Click to expand...
Transsexualism is a medical condition, not a psychiatric disorder. That's how I meant that.

What's "wrong" is our bodies not matching our minds/brains and so we take steps to fix that. That what I meant.
 
Muffled

Muffled

Jesus in me
I believe God decides what gender is appropriate for the person and to change that is an insult and an attempt to avoid ones fate. I believe a person who does not learn his lesson has to repeat it over and over.
 
Twilight Hue

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Saint Frankenstein said:
If a person who suffers from gender/sex dysphoria transitions, is it a sin for them to transition?

To my mind, transgenderism/transsexuality poses a problem to Christian anthropology as regards the sexes. Traditional Christianity teaches that God made humanity as male and female. That is the primal identity for a human being. Everything else follows from that. So your soul is either male or female because the body and the soul are both required to make up a complete human being (hence the notion of the Resurrection over something like reincarnation, which treats the body as a disposable facade). So if you're a man, you're a man because your soul is male and because your body proclaims you ad such. It's an intrinsic reality. Same for females.

So how are transsexuals supposed to figure into this? The best theory about it that science has is the brain of the fetus is hit with a large amount of the hormones of the opposite sex while in the womb. This causes the brain to either masculinize or femininize. It creates the dysphoria since the brain expects the body to be one thing but it's the other. Only hormonal and surgical intervention has been proven to help, so far.

In this view, transsexualism is a sex differentiation disorder, a neurological condition - a medical condition at the root of it. It's not a mental illness or a delusion. (I'm only speaking about transsexualism here because I don't really understand things like non-binary, degender, trans people who don't want to transition or whatever else that's under the "trans umbrella" and science hasn't said anything about them, as far as I know. It's not my reality, either.)

So how would such a person fit into Christian anthropology of the sexes? Were they meant to be the sex that is encoded in their chromosomes and it is destroying God's creation to tamper with it? What about the fact the brain more closely matches the brain of the identified sex? You can't just throw the science of it out, emerging as it may be.

Can a male soul become incarnate in a female body and vice versa? People are born with all manner of congenital birth defects and other mishaps, including being intersex which transsexualism may well be a sort of intersex condition. Christianity teaches that all bodily defects and problems will be fixed after the Resurrection when humanity receives glorified bodies. Might that be the case for transsexuals? Might we finally receive bodies that match our brains and souls?

All I know that is Christianity had better start thinking about this issue in a logical way. I have seen no real attempts from the Catholic or Orthodox Churches to address this issue in a theological way. If they say that it is a sin to transition, then you throw the science out the window and condemn transsexuals who have transitioned to lives of being outcast from church communities and humiliation. After all, after a certain point in transitioning, you can't really detransition. If you say it is fine, you still have to square it with the theology surrounding the creation of male and female.

Personally I see being transsexual as a medical condition or a birth defect of sorts. I'm not really proud of it and just wish my body and mind were in alignment. I don't think of it as spitting in the face of God (I love God even if I don't understand Him/Her), but as treating a medical condition. If the Resurrection is true, I pray that God will have mercy on me and other transsexuals.
Click to expand...
Screw sin. There's no such thing. Your fine and your choices and decisions are your own, not anybody else's.
 
Rival

Rival

se Dex me saut.
Staff member
Premium Member
Muffled said:
I believe God decides what gender is appropriate for the person and to change that is an insult and an attempt to avoid ones fate. I believe a person who does not learn his lesson has to repeat it over and over.
Click to expand...
Or possibly G-d makes things wrong on purpose for humans to discover solutions to, to give us something to fix, to argue about, to deal with, to do; and more importantly to learn to be good to everyone. Maybe it's for us to perfect ourselves, instead of G-d doing it all for us; G-d says, Here, a mistake, you can see it's wrong - so fix it. We live in a profoundly imperfect world; maybe, instead of leaning on G-d, it's for us to use the brains and souls G-d gave us to fix the world ourselves by way of not only perfecting it, but us - how we relate to others, how we relate to nature, to animals. G-d keeps throwing curveballs our way to let us know that no-one is all good or all bad or the way we think they should be, and that hate isn't the answer.
 
Saint Frankenstein

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
Rival said:
Or possibly G-d makes things wrong on purpose for humans to discover solutions to, to give us something to fix, to argue about, to deal with, to do; and more importantly to learn to be good to everyone. Maybe it's for us to perfect ourselves, instead of G-d doing it all for us; G-d says, Here, a mistake, you can see it's wrong - so fix it. We live in a profoundly imperfect world; maybe, instead of leaning on G-d, it's for us to use the brains and souls G-d gave us to fix the world ourselves by way of not only perfecting it, but us - how we relate to others, how we relate to nature, to animals. G-d keeps throwing curveballs our way to let us know that no-one is all good or all bad or the way we think they should be, and that hate isn't the answer.
Click to expand...
Good post. It reminds me of people praying for help when they're sick when God already provided help in the form of doctors.
 
TheBannerofHomuraAkemi

TheBannerofHomuraAkemi

Active Member
Christianity has been wrong about every science question that's been asked so why would it be right about this one.

Transgender studies is a complicated matter that I don't understand. But I just wanted to put my view point. If a Christian says that and Transgender person is a immoral sinner that christian should keep his bigot opinions to his or her self so everyone can move on with their life.
 
Shadow Wolf

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
Muffled said:
I believe God decides what gender is appropriate for the person and to change that is an insult and an attempt to avoid ones fate. I believe a person who does not learn his lesson has to repeat it over and over.
Click to expand...
My "fate" as male was jail, prison, drug abuse, and an early death. It was a life of utterly no concern, not for life, not for myself, and not for others. No goals, no direction, no drive, no aim, no motivation except to die and spread my misery. But now that me is dead and no more, my list of accomplishments and achieved goals is growing, and I'm happy and enjoying life. The only mistake and regret was I didn't start sooner, though I can't beat myself up over that because I lived in a world of bigoted Christians who can't and won't mind the beam in their own eye.
 
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