E pur si muove: A response to Keith Fournier’s lies and disinformation

Deacon Keith Fournier recently wrote an ignorant, inflammatory and inaccurate piece on transgender activism which was published at Catholic Online, entitled Exchanging the Truth of God for a Lie: Transgender Activists, Cultural Revolution

Fournier’s article is evidence of the continued resistance of the tradition-encrusted Roman Catholic Church’s to advances in scientific understanding that caused that Church to bring Galileo to trial for heresy, to condemn the more advanced (though still rather simple, cosmologically, as the Sun itself is not now understood to be the center of the universe, and is only a rather minor star in a peripheral spiral arm of a galaxy of over 200 million stars in a Universe that is staggeringly huge) scientific understanding of heliocentricity as being “false and contrary to Holy Scripture" because Galileo dared challenge the prevailing Church-accepted Ptolomaic geocentric theory of the solar system’s workings.

The Cardinals who condemned Galileo in their profound 17th century ignorance of the advances in cosmological science, pronounced in their decision that heliocentrism is “absurd and false philosophically and formally heretical, because it is expressly contrary to Holy Scripture” and that “The proposition that the earth is not the center of the universe and immovable, but that it moves (around the sun) and also with a rotational motion, is equally absurd, philosophically false and theologically erroneous.”

After a study of the Galileo trial that was commenced in 1979, on Halloween in 1992 Pope John Paul II finally issued an explanation, lifting the edict of Inquisition against Galileo, 359 years after the fact. While not actually apologizing, the pope said that

"Galileo sensed in his scientific research the presence of the Creator who, stirring in the depths of his spirit, stimulated him, anticipating and assisting his intuitions."

Pope John Paul II pointed out at that time that the province of the Church is theology, and not science or astronomy. The pope indicated that the lack of modern scientific knowledge among the Cardinals on the tribunal,

"led them unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith, a question which in fact pertained to scientific investigation.”

And yet, Deacon Fournier, like many in that Church’s Magisterium, seems to have learned nothing at all from the serious error of those who put science on trial, and decided incorrectly.

Deacon Fournier is today in the same position of those 17th century Inquisition cardinals. He confuses his erroneous theological interpretation with Truth, he misstates and misinterprets the science and he ignores the evidence that explains the physiology of transgender people, the evidence for genetic predispositions and ontological development of brain structures along one sexed blueprint, while genital duct systems follow the other blueprint.

Instead, he starts with accusations that transgender people are the product of moral corruption, ignoring the moral corruption and mean-spirited attitudes that infest his church’s Magisterium. He misinterprets Romans 1 as a condemnation of homosexuality, rather than understanding that it is a condemnation of people who engage in sexual practices against their God-given natures while intoxicated during Bacchanalian religious rites. But why is Fournier beginning with a misdirected attack on homosexuality when the intended victims of his bullying are transgender people?

Does he not know the difference between sexual orientation and sex assignment, or with gender identity?

When Fournier erroneously declares that there are biblical references that must be ripped out of the Bible by those who maintain that “there is no reference to the rejection of homosexual practices in the Bible” - he is the one who has apparently ignored 1 Samuel 18, 2 Samuel 1 and many references in between, that relate to the marriage of David and Jonathan. In addition, he would have to rip out the often is interpreted story of the Men of Sodom – because a proper reading of that passage actually condemns Fournier’s own position, which, while wholly wrong, are consistent with the interpretive writings of Benedict XVI about things that “everyone knows” about Sodom, when he was merely Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and the head of the successor to the Inquisition, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

But Fournier iss supposedly condemning transgender people – so lets start with Isaiah 56, Matthew 19:12 and Acts 8 - all of which don’t seem to appear in Deacon Keith’s Bible – or he would understand that even Jesus knew about transgender and intersex people, and that we are special to God. Or he might ponder about the relationship between Genesis 1:27 and the secret name of God derived from reading the Tetragrammaton backward in Hebrew – which translates out as “He/She.” (This analysis is courtesy of Rabbi Mark Sameth of Pleasantville, who knows more about Jewish scripture than Deacon Fournier and any college of Cardinals combined.)

Fournier cites to the Reuters story about the lawsuits challenging New York’s birth certificate regulations. As I am the plaintiff in the first of these cases, I would suggest that he would do much better to refer to the actual legal documents and to the scientific materials that provide the basis for some of the challenge, rather than engaging in fanciful flights of illogic.

After quoting from the Reuters article, including a quote from me, he still does not have a clue, despite the words pointing him in the right direction for inquiry.
The next thing, Deacon Fournier starts some gibberish about the Australian Human Rights Commission recognizing “23 genders.” The ignorant article he first refers to cites to the Australian document – which does not identify 23 genders at all, but rather 23 terms for various gender identities on the spectrum of transgender identity that is in the gray area at the edge of the artificial binary that Western society imposes on the physiological sexual diversity in the nature of human beings. Those who accept the binary of sex as some strict “male and female” construct will shrug off those who don’t quite fit into their arbitrary definitions as abnormal, as “freakazoids,” or as delusional.

For Deacon Fournier’s edification, my best guess as to what “neutroi” might mean, is perhaps a weakly bigender identity that is the gender identity equivalent of asexuality. But that is not itself a “gender” if by gender Fournier means “sex assignment.”

Fournier is confused by all this, and he is in turn confusing apples with oranges – it is as if he is saying that some school board is no longer dealing with students as “boys” and “girls” but as” jocks, brainiacs, nerds, geeks, cheerleaders, skaters, outcasts, preppies, artsies, druggies, goths, gangstas, punks, rednecks, queers, etc.”

Interestingly, the Australian commission looks with favor on the language being considered by “the United States Senate” called “for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act of 2009” which defines gender identity as:

‘the gender-related identity, appearance, or mannerisms or other gender-related characteristics of an individual, with or without regard to the individual’s designated sex at birth’.

The wording of the federal Bill has a number of advantages over the narrower Australian definitions that only protect people who identify as a member of the ‘opposite’ or ‘other’ sex.

I could go through a detailed history of how the American definition grew and evolved between 1979 and the present day – but I will leave that to another essay.
Of course, Fournier is too busy making things up about “23 genders” to actually find anything useful to discuss, at least until he gets really deep into his article.
Fournier attacks hormonal and surgical treatments that are used to help those transgender people who feel the sociocultural pressure to conform those parts of our bodies that can be brought into greater conformity with the artificial binary expectation of society.

Perhaps in a society that respected the diversity of natural sex as was common among many world cultures in ancient times and even more recently, before those cultures were exposed to western binary prejudices, there would be a cultural niche appropriate for those who are different. However, we live in a society that recognizes two sexes, so the accepted medical practice is to try to help transgenderr people conform more closely to the physiological norm for those whose brain development is similar to our own.

Certainly, the late iranian Shi’ite Ayatollah Khomenei actually understood more about transgender people than the Catholic Church – even though the mullahs who have followed him have twisted his fatwa on the subject to give gay people they plan to execute by stoning, an alternative, to subject themselves to transsexual surgeries rather than a painful death.

Fournier writes, without a clue as to the real science:

“Medical science confirms that our identity as male or female affects even our brains. In addition, even the physical appearance must be sustained by massive doses of synthetic hormones.”

In the first sentence, he gets a glimmer of the truth – yes, there are sexed differences in brains – but he ignores the science – that transgender people have sex-differentiated brain structures in the hypothalamus that conform to those of the other genital sex.

In 1995, in a peer-reviewed article in Nature, entitled A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality [Nature 378, 68 - 70 (02 November 1995); doi:10.1038/378068a0] the researchers involved gave us a first glimmer into transsexual brain structures.

This was confirmed in a follow-up study in 2000, entitled Male-to-Female Transsexuals Have Female Neuron Numbers in a Limbic Nucleus, published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism Vol. 85, No. 5 2034-2041


But Deacon Fournier, as little as he understands the theology of transgender people (or gay people, for that matter) fails even more spectacularly to understand medical science. The first thing is that not all hormone therapy is by way of “synthetic” hormones. (He apparently does not know how premarin is manufactured, for example). Then he does not undertsand that synthetic hormonal therapies are used for a number of medical treatments – for example, one of the diabetes drugs that keep me alive every day is called Byetta, and it is a synthetic hormone derived from Gila monster saliva, which works as a mimetic for hormones secreted by the first two feet of the small intestine at the beginning of the digestive process and which stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin.

In rejecting surgeery for those transgender people who need it and can have it, he should also reject other life-saving surgery - perhaps he should forgo a needed triple bypass, because the intervention of a surgeon would violate his body as a temple of the Holy Spirit and interfere with God’s plan for his life and death. Applying this sort of “theology” to science is exactly what went wrong with the Galileo case – and Fournier is repeating history.

He also does not really understand the source of the “sub secretum” document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith – it was issued first in 2000, and then circulated in 2002 to the bishops when it became apparent that none of the bishops had been asking their papal representatives anything about transgender people.

This document was leaked to Catholic News Service in February 2003 – and that is where a lot of the information available to the public about this document comes from.

It is believed that the source for mush of the erroneous information about transgender people in the sub secretum document came from Dr. Paul McHugh, an Opus Dei zealot whose area of psychiatric expertise is eating disorders, but who, as head of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins, shut down that institution’s sex reassignment surgery clinic. Much of the thrust of McHugh’s animus against transgender people comes from his severe lack of understanding of the facts – and his attack is on the discredited theories of the late John Money – an attack that Deacon Fournier continues. But the attack is misdirected, and is not against the actual science, but only at John Money's discredited ideas.

In addition to McHugh, another person thought to have been a source for the document was Urbano Cardinal Navarrete, a Spanish Jesuit most noted for being responsible for the enforced masculinization by the of the three persons of the Holy Trinity – Navarrete is thought to have been responsible for the invalidation of Catholic baptisms performed using gender-neutral references to the Trinity (example: Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier), rather than the traditional patriarchal masculine Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This pronouncement of masculine attributes of God is as ridiculous as the Church’s position on transgender people – but as long as they are sticking to theology for the adherents of their increasingly irrelevant and morally backward Church, that last is something that does not affect me, and as ludicrous as it is, there is no reason for me to do more than snicker at their patriarchist chutzpah, especially since I've since rejected the trinitarian doctrine and the divinity of that great Jewish teacher, the Rabbi Yeshua ben Miriam.

The place where the Church goes wrong on the science as it relates to transgender people is in its insistence on birth genital essentialism as a reaction to the unsound theories of John Money, and to certain aspects of feminism (though the Church itself is the source of the birth-genital essentialism espoused by some who style themselves radical feminist separatists based on Catholic-influenced doctrine passed to them by the late Mary Daly and her protege, Janice Raymond, the infamous author of The Transsexual Empire.

Fournier directs his attack without taking into account the individual’s personal biological, genetic and developmental factors that indicate that this birth genital-based assignment is incorrect.

In 2008, two separate studies from Australia established separate genetic predispositions for different kinds of transgender development.

In one study, the predisposition for those who develop with female-identified brains and male genital tracts was shown to involve a long androgen receptor gene:
Lauren Hare, Pascal Bernard, Francisco J. Sanchez, Paul N. Baird, Eric Vilain, Trudy Kennedy and Vincent R. Harley. Androgen Receptor (AR) Repeat Length Polymorphism Associated with Male-to-female Transsexualism. Biological Psychiatry, Advance online publication date 27 Oct 2008, Jan 2009 print edition

The other study,aimed at those who develop with male-identified brains and female genital tract development, was entitled A Polymorphism of the CYP17 Gene Related to Sex Steroid Metabolism is Associated With Female-to-Male But Not Male-to-Female Transsexualism by Bentz, Eva-Katrin; Hefler, Lukas A.; Kaufmann, Ulrike; Huber, Johannes C.; Kolbus, Andrea; Tempfer, Clemens B., published in Obstetrical & Gynecological Survey: December 2008 - Volume 63 - Issue 12 - pp 775-777
doi: 10.1097/01.ogx.0000338093.21452.0b

These studies, and the brain structure studies from 1995 and 2000, provide clues to the ontological developments that result in transgender people. While there is much additional study required, these studies make it possible to discredit the earlier understandings of transgender people that date back to 1965, in which transgender people were seen as merely delusional members of their initially-assigned sex, for whom any treatment is seen as merely palliative. It is the erroneous assumption at the root of the Roman Catholic Church Magisterium's position, and it is just as wrong as relying on the Bible to classify bats as birds merely because they fly, or whales as fish because they swim in the ocean.

Strangely enough, once one realizes that this misplaced genital essentialism is the primary issue with the Magisterium’s doctrine, it becomes apparent that things like Bishop Gregory’s quote about “canonical condition” can be made to make sense. Of course, it’s okay to see gender as fixed at birth, as long as we understand that it is the brain and not the genitalia, that is the predominant factor in the correct assignment. In addition, it should be obvious that even the Bible recognized some people as falling outside the male/female binary - the people classified as "eunuchs."

After all – my own situation is one in which I am asking the City of New York for a correction of the error made in my assignment at birth, as well as to conform my birth certificate with my other identity documentation. I am looking for a correction, not a change. There is a difference, one lost on Deacon Fournier.

Indeed, the Church’s position is and should be purely theological, and not scientific. He Magisterium should keep its theological noses out of the scientific arena and the medical science as it relates to who is properly assigned to which sex, unless it wishes to conform its theology to the prevailing science, and is willing to change that theology when the scientific understanding becomes more complete.

I am not calling for a right to “choose” a gender – I am calling for a legal right to correct my sex designation on a document that was erroneous at the time of my birth. And if the Church won't change my baptismal certificate, that's perfectly fine, since I have rejected their theology a while ago.

Deacon Fournier and his Church have a nasty habit of interfering in areas about which their Magisterium has no credible scientific, legal or cultural business. These include civil marriage, women’s reproductive rights in the civil arena (they can call whatever they want to be “sinful”), and the human rights, dignity and worth of transgender, lesbian, intersex, bisexual and gay people. The Church can deny us the priesthood, it can deny us the right to a sacrament of matrimony, but when it interferes in the civil arena in its gross, immoral and theologically unsound manner, they should expect pushback from those they oppress in their mean-spirited effort to impose their peculiar and backward morality on those whose moral compass actually points in the right direction.

Western Civilization became what it was in large part despite the resistance ot the Church, not because of it.

Thank the Arabs. Thank the Irish. Thank the Jews. Thank the Greeks and the Romans. Thank Thomas Aquinas, who more than anyone else was responsible for the Church accepting Aristotle, which allowed for a jump-start for the renaissance. Thank Martin Luther and Henry VIII, at least a little. Thank the scientists, engineers and inventors who brought the Industrial Revolution.

But the Church itself has done more harm than good over its lifetime, particularly when it acts in ignorant tradition-bound resistance to advances in science and to a kinder, gentler, superior morality. And rather than making me wait 359 years for a tepid apology, perhaps Deacon Fournier can start the ball rolling by apologizing now. But I won’t hold my breath or that. I would only hope and pray that the day comes when God will open his eyes, soften his heart and make him open up to the idea that at least some of the things he knows for sure about sex and gender may not be right 100% of the time.

Bryan Fischer wants Women to shower with Trans Men

Just this past week, I turned my attention to the American "Family" Association's Bryan Fischer, and showed that he is neither a real Conservative or a real Christian. Thanks to my friend Zoe Brain, I've just been exposed to more of Fischer's inability to understand sacred scripture or science, in a blog essay over at the American "Family" Association's "Rightly Concerned" Blog, entitled "Barney Frank: ENDA is about men showering with women."

Fischer starts out showing his inability to comprehend Christian sacred scripure. His first two very short paragraphs are an attempt at scriptural exegesis:

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them” (Genesis 1:27, emphasis mine).

According to both Scripture and biology, there are just two genders, two
and only two, male and female. Period.

The emphasis was Fischer's, but it may as well have been mine. And his conclusion is totally and completely incorrect.

First, as I have pointed out on numerous occasions, Genesis 1:27 has an "and" and not an "or" connecting "male" and "female."

Second, this scriptural passage connotes that the very image of God is "male *and* female." All Fischer needs to do is read about the (allegorical, true, but this is a bigger point for a biblical literalist) creation of Adam. Adam was created in God's image, "male and female" in one being, and then split into two people. This does not mean that every person created by God is "split" in exactly the same way. From the perspective of scripture, transsexual people are created by God with natures that are different - not entirely male, and not entrely female. In a way, we're possibly more "God-like" than most people, though we are not "all male" and "all female" in the way that God's image and likeness is. For more on the image and likeness of God, and how this relates to the Name of God, I'd refer Bryan to Rabbi Mark Sameth.

Third, scripture contains references to people who are male, people who are female, and people who are "other." Those "other" people are called "eunuchs" in sacred scripture. Is Bryan saying that sacred scripture is untrue? That there are no people who are different?

Jesus Christ knew more about transsexual and intersex people that Bryan Fischer. We have one biblical verse in which Jesus mentions us, using the term "eunuchs" but that term is fleshed out. Let's look at Matthew 19:12, which together with passages from Isaiah and Acts constitute a triple reference that should tell Bryan that trans people are specially loved by God.

In Matthew 19:12, we hear the words of Jesus:

"for there are eunuchs which have been born thus from [their] mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs of men; and there are eunuchs who have made eunuchs of themselves for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. He that is able to receive [it], let him receive [it]."

I've used Darby here, but I could have used any of the literal translations.

So let's examine Jesus' words more closely, since people like Bryan are incapable of taking more than a few words in at once and not making a jumble of them:

"for there are eunuchs which have been born thus from [their] mother's womb; . . ."

In this first phrase, Jesus makes it clear that He, unlike Bryan, understands that transsexual and intersex people are born different.

". . . and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs of men; . . ."

While this second phrase may refer to those who are castrated as punishment for a crime, or to make them sing as sopranos in the Vatican choir, or for those who entered into government service in China or the Eastern Roman Empire, it also refers to things like genital reconstructuin surgery, performed on some trans and intersex people so that they can fit more easily into the artificial societal construct of sex that is imposed on the diversity of nature, to match the way their brains developed.

". . . and there are eunuchs who have made eunuchs of themselves for the sake of the kingdom of the heavens. "

This third category of eunuch has from early Christian times been misinterpreted as referring to priestly celibacy, in a reaction to those Chriistians who took literally Christ's admonitions in Matthew 5:30 and 18:8, and Mark 9:43-45, and, like the theologian Origen, castrated themselves to avoid succumbing to their sexual urges. Paul of Tarsus offered marriage as an alternative to Christians who could not make themselves be celibate - teaching that Christians should be celibate, but those who cannot control their sexual urges should get married. For true Christians, based on Paul's teaching, getting married s an acknowledgment of an inability for the parties to sexually contain themselves. (of course, not everyone is a Christian, and not all Christians are faithful to Paul's teaching, but it is at least a rebuttable presumption that any married Christian is unable to control their sexual urges - otherwise they would have chosen to be celibate, like the Shakers.)

In actuality, the third category of eunuch in Jesus' words, is a reference back to Isaiah 56:4-5, in which the Lord says:

". . . Unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and hold fast to my covenant,

even unto them will I give in my house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."

Jesus, a great scripture scholar, knew that God has a special place in God's own House for those who are transsexual and intersex.

We already knew that Bryan Fischer fails in his theological understanding of sacred scripture. I just wanted to make it absolutely clear that he is wrong about Genesis 1:27. There can be no doubt of this among reasonable minds.

Let's turn to biology, shall we?

We've clearly established that Fischer nows nothing about scripture; he apparently knows even less about biology.

His third paragraph is a gem:

"Pro-family advocates have from the beginning opposed the normalizing of transgenderism because it does gross violence to any rational view of human sexuality, and, even worse, will force women to share shower, bathroom and locker-room facilities with biological males. "

First, he mischaracterizes his cohorts as "pro-family advocates." That is an utter lie. He and people like James Dobson are about as anti-family as they come. The only families that they support are families like their own. They believe that families that are different are to be feared and hated. That is not pro-family, just like the National Organization "for" Marriage is not for Marriage but is against it.

Second, Fischer does not have a rational view of human sexuality, or biology. He fails to understand that nature is more diverse than society, and that there are people who do not easily fit into societal definitions of male or female. For people who hew to the narrow view of sex assignment, anyone who does not fit into that view perfectly is abnormal, deviant and pathological. It's also why people like Fischer conflate homosexuality, which is a sexual orientation, with transsexualism, which involves gender identity seated in the brain, and its relation to sex assignment. These are different issues, but the T is associated with the LG and B because we are all *different* from the sexuality expected by the majority, and as a result, elements within that majority feel no compunction about singling us out for persecution just because we are different in some way. Bullies like Bryan Fischer have no sense of morality or decency. They lie like snakes in the grass, and strike with their venom, their lies, and their deceit. They delight in whipping up of gullible and ignorant straight cissexual people into a frenzy of fear that is rooted in their fear of people who are not exactly like them, ghoulishly raking in their contributions to fight against justice and decency.

Human sexuality is diverse. It is society that imposes the two-sex view on nature.

If society insists that there has to be two and only two sexes, then society has to accommodate those who are different and do not exactly fit into the narrow view, in a reasonable way.

Forcing women to bathe with men is not reasonable. But THAT is what Bryan Fischer wants! He wants to force transsexual men to use women;s shower facilities. Because Bryan does not recognize genital reconstruction surgery as being effective, he wants men - men with beards, deep voices and male pattern voices, some of whom have larger penises than others, to shower with women, just because those men were born with a developed mullerian duct system and have or had uteruses.

Just because Bryan thinks of women as merely walking uteruses and sperm depositories, does not mean that such a viewpoint is universally shared. I am sure that when Bryan is not busy opposing reasonable treatment for trans people, he must be out there shaking jars of formaldehyde with fetuses at women going to see their doctors for medical treatment. His reduction of women to the mullerian duct system, as mere cows who exist for the purpose of bearing children to the men who think they own them, is shameful.

Then he wants to force women to share showers with trans men. Shame on him! There is no rational basis for his position. He apparently thinks that there are only transsexual women out there for him to degrade and abuse. He does not seem to realize that there are transsexual men, too - and that when he forces women out of the showers and locker rooms, he is forcing real men into those same places!

Bryan does not want those gullible and ignorant followers of his to know the truth - because if they knew the truth, they would realize just how ridiculous his position is. No - Bryan is relying on the idea that trans men will be too afraid to use women's facilities because they would be openly challenged by the women, even though Bryan insists that this is where these men belong.
What he really wants is for trans people to be relegated to the shadows of society and not be seen in the daylight lest we offend people who are afraid of people who don;t fit into their preconceived binary notions of reality.

The reality is that even under ENDA, women-born-female (WBFs) would not be forced to shower with pre-op/non-op women-born-transsexual, at the same time. Women who have, or still have, penises, would either have private showers in the women's area, or if there are only open showers, can be accommodated by way of "time-slicing" so they have access at different times from women who have an objection. Post-op women should not be subjected to any limitation.

When it comes to bathrooms, privacy is at the stall level. Pre-op and non-op women can and dod safely use public bathroom facilities every day without a problem. It's usually the butch lesbians who get hassled by other women in the bathroom because they sometimes get mistaken for men, depending on what they are wearing.

Bryan goes on to paint a distorted picture of trans people:

Transgenders are people who are so psychologically and mentally confused they think they are trapped in a body of the wrong sex.

So we are talking here about biological males - males in every single cell of their bodies, with every strand of DNA male to the core, males according to “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God” - who are convinced that they are women trapped in male bodies. Consequently, they want to act as women, dress as women, and use the same facilities women use, including bathrooms, showers, and locker rooms.

Do you notice how easily and quickly Bryan makes the inconvenient trans men disappear? That's because he wants to foist these men onto women in women's showers and other facilities.

But that isn't the primary point. Bryan shows he doesn't have a clue about science, much as he proves over and over again that he does not have a clue about Christian sacred scripture.

Trans women are not and never are men. Not even when they got the blue blanket in the nursery because the obstetrician saw an "outie" rather than an "innie." Just because many may have an XY 23rd chromosome pair does not make them male. There has been scientific research that shows that there is an SRY gene that is one of the primary blueprints for male development. There have been genetic situtaions that have been discovered that explain at least some cases of transsexualism. In the past couple of years, a gene has been found that results in a "long androgen receptor." This may explain some of the brain development of trans women as female, while the recepptors work well enough to cause the wolffian ducts to develop rather then the mullerian ducts. For trans men, a gene was found that causes testosterone to be processed much more efficiently - and thiscan have an effect on embryonic and fetal development.

Bryan does not seem to realize that the "default" blueprint for the human body is female, and that any male development is the result of deviance from that default. In essence, before sexual differentiation, embryos are, as the bible points out in Genesis 1:27, "male *and* female." They have the capacity to develop in either direction, depending on how the blueprint reads, and the construction process moves. Transsexual embryos/fetuses get some parts that develop along male lines, and some parts that develop along female lines. Other intersex embryos/fetuses have developmental differences that range from developing fully in accordance with the "opposite" blueprint - complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) is an example, in which an embryos that would be classified as (unsing Bryan's words):

"males in every single cell of their bodies, with every strand of DNA male to the core"

develop phenotypically as female, because even though their bodies are full of testosterone, their cells have testosterone receptors that do not work. Remember, the default development is female, so that explains why the female form is used in the construction when the testosterone does not work.

Returning to trans women, or rather, fetuses that develop along those lines, the long androgen receptors may or may not be sufficient to cause female development in the brain or parts of the brain. The result is likely that not everyone who has this genetic feature will turn out to be a woman-born-transsexual. But enough of us do.

The studies do not claim to have found the only source of these developmental differences, but they point out the fact that who and what we are is biological and not merely psychiatric.

While the APA still classifies 'gender identity disorder" as a mental disorder, Bryan's take on it is pure prejudice and not scientific at all. The only reason for the mental disorder classification is so that trans people can get treatment. There are better models, medical models, that would be just as effective and less stigmatizing. The appropriate treatment, from the standpoint of a society that demands that there be only two sexes, is hormonal and surgical treatment to allow the trans individual to fit into society.

But Bryan and his ilk would have none of this - they'd rather have all trans people just commit suicide for lack of treatment, or push us off to the quacks who still practice electroshock and other "conversion" therapies that have been proven to be ineffective.

The only perversion I would not want to have people exposed to is Bryan's perversion of Christianity into something hateful and malignant.

Bryan quotes from Barney Frank, who, while a member of Congress, and a gay man, is no expert on transsexualism. Barney only showed in what Bryan quoted that even our allies need to be educated. But at least people like Barney Frank are likely to be educable, unlike bigots like Bryan, who perhaps should try electroshock therapy themselves to eliminate their harmful religious delusions. Not all religion is delusional, I hasten to add, and not all religious delusions are harmful. But when people like Bryan twist sacred scripture and science to fit their bigotry and prejudice and genuinely believe that they are right, they prove they are in serious need of professional help.

Incredibly, Bryan has to go back to 1999, when Rep. Frank was even less knowledgeable about trans people than he is now, to dig up his quote. In 1999, the first BSTc study was only four years old and was not widely known outside of specialized scientific circles.

Being gay does not make Barney Frank an expert on transsexual people, even now, but he's better today than he was in 1999, even if he still does not quite "get it."
And even in 1999, Barney was explaining that it was society that he saw as not ready to accept trans women as women. Things have changed - and those people who feel that way are increasingly in the minority.

Even most transsexual people ourselves are not experts on what it is that makes us tick - in part because we've all been educated in the same societal system that expects the sex binary to be a reflection of nature. We just know that the initial sex assignment was wrong. Once we realize that nature is more diverse, it's still difficult to let go of the societal expectations. Indeed, unless society changes, those who transition rather than trying to "gut it out" as something like "genderqueer" may have a better chance at coping with society, provided society meets us part way with reasonable accommodations.

So, when it comes to "protecting our wives and daughters," just remember that it's Bryan Fischer who is the one who really wants us women sharing the facilities with trans men. He just doesn't come out and say it openly, because it would scare away all those pretty donations that line his pockets.

--
ADDENDUM - August 30, 2010:

For those who want to know more about biological issues in the gray area that the "society" has historically ignored, and Bryan Fischer wants to continue keeping in ignorance, I suggest that readers take a look at numerous entries over at Zoe Brain's blog (you can find it in the column to the right).

Here are some examples of medical scientific studies that Zoe has provided information about:

http://www.facebook.com/l/c76ab;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18000096.

There's more in the comments at http://www.facebook.com/l/c76ab;aebrain.blogspot.com/2010/08/travel-issues.html
e.g. Frydman, R. et. al. (1988) Pregnancy in a 46 XY patient. Fertil. Steril., 50:813-814. Kan, A.K.S., et. al. (1997)

Two successful pregnancies in a 46, XY patient. Hum. Reprod.,12(7):1434-1435. Selvaraj, K., et. al. (2002)

Successful pregnancy in a patient with a 46, XY karyotype. Fertil. Steril., Aug.; 78(2):419-420.

Skidmarks on the Road: Part II

Yesterday, I posted the first part of my response to Mary Kochan’s “Where the Rubber Meets the Road: Part I” that was published over at Catholic Exchange.

In a nutshell, in my first chapter, I took Mary’s foundational points – that sacred scripture is only properly interpreted by the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church, and that the doctrines of the Church have an “incarnational aspect” – in whuch the doctrine is incarnated (becomes alive) by an act. Mary used several examples: rituals, sacraments, vows, prayers and acts of penance.

Rather than addressing the treatment of transsexual people directly, I chose to take a completely different social and moral controversy – abortion and the point at which a human being becomes a person – to illustrate how the Magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church has failed in its interpretations of sacred scripture. The span of personhood on the continuum of human life is scripturally associated with the time between “birth and breath” and “breathing one’s last.” Our breath is the breath of God. This scriptural doctrine is “incarnated” by the sacrament of Baptism. I pointed out how the Magisterium’s current teachings about abortion have changed over the centuries, and that the Church has failed to properly interpret sacred scripture.

The structure of Roman Catholic doctrine is like a house built on loose sand, in the face of an incoming hurricane’s storm surge. By claiming to have all the Truth, the establishment of just one falsehood makes the whole structure subject to question.

With that foundational point firmly in place, let’s turn to more of Mary’s essay, and let's also turn to the issue of transsexual people.

Mary turns to an e-mail message she received from a transsexual woman, which refers to a 2009 article in Catholic Exchange by Dale O’Leary, and Mary’s many comments on that article. We are going to have to look further into the source materials, but for now, let’s turn to this.

At first Mary thinks that the letter might be a prank, but decides to respond to it as if it is genuine.

Mary writes:

“Let me begin with something that is biologically and medically true. The sex of
all infants at birth and of all persons later in life is not unambiguous. There
are conditions — deformities of genitalia, genetic anomalies, intrauterine
interference with normal development, etc. — that can make what is usually a
straightforward identification of someone as male or female problematic. While
these are blessedly rare, they are real medical conditions and the persons
afflicted with them deserve and should have access to medical care that performs
two critical functions: 1. Determining to the best of scientific accuracy what
the sex of the person really is 2. Providing the person with the medical and/or
surgical and/or psychological intervention to promote physically, emotionally,
and socially healthy adaptation to that sex. Where an error has been made
in documentation, due to the person having been misidentified at birth as one
sex while actually being the other, simple justice demands that the records
should be corrected.”

Immediately, Mary falls into the trap imposed by the sex and gender binary.

Dr. Milton Diamond of the University of Hawaii has said it best:

“Nature loves diversity, but society hates it.”

The binary of sex is not a biological reality, but is rather a social construct imposed on the diversity of reality. While it is true that the large majority of human beings will fall unambiguously into one or the other binary sexes (male or female), there is a small minority that does not fit into the social construct hat society imposes on this reality.

Rather than seeing these variations as natural differences, Mary, and many other cissexual people, will see anyone who is different as abnormal. And while the term “abnormal” in and of itself in this situation simply means “not like the 99% who fit into the societal expectation of sex assignment,” the term carries with it an enormous negative baggage. Of course, Mary jumps into this with both feet, gleefully pathologizing people who are different.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t some circumstances that don’t require immediate life-saving medical and/or surgical treatment – but surgeons who operate on newborns with ambiguous genitalia often stray too far from life-saving treatment into genital mutilation for the purpose of defining which of the two societally-expected boxes – and often enough, since it is “easier to dig a hole than erect a pole,” the surgeons will tend to make more of these infants into someone more easily assigned as “female.”

Society has strong expectations from the sex and gender binary. The very first thing anyone asks when a baby is born, is, “is it a boy or a girl?” The assignment of the blue or pink blanket in the maternity ward nursery is perhaps a societal “incarnational aspect” of this binary doctrine.

Yet, when we look at sacred scripture, we see in Genesis 1:27 that:

So God created humans in God’s own image, God created them in the image of God;
male and female God created them.

In nearly all translations of this verse, the conjunction “and” is used – showing us that the image of God is “male *and* female” - and not "male *or* female."

In another essay in this blog, I have mentioned Rabbi Mark Sameth’s writings on the tetragrammaton, revealing that a secret name of God is found by reading the YHWH backward, and it comes out as the Hebrew words for HE/SHE. If we relate this back to Genesis 1:27, it makes it clear that if we are created in God’s image, we are not male *or* female, we are male *and* female.

Scripture is fairly clear on this, but as much as it may inform a Christian’s faith, scripture isn’t science. While the story is an allegory, the underlying truth is undeniable. Looking at other traditions:

In every yin there is a small bit of yang, and in every yang a small bit of yin.

In Plato’s Symposium, we get a very similar yet broader story from Aristophanes, who uses a rather interesting allegory to explain the diversity of sexual orientation.

Biological diversity exists.

In 1995 and 2000, scientists examining the human brain were able to determine that the central strata of the basal stria terminalis in brains of transsexual people resemble the brains of cissexual people who are assigned to the “opposite” sex. Recent studies have shown genetic propensities for the development of transsexualism, a “long androgen receptor” gene for those who are trans women, and a gene that efficiently processes androgens for trans men. These may not be the sole causes, as transsexuality and other intersex conditions involve developmental differences from the standard binary paths. Whether these are based on changes in the blueprint (the genes) or whether they are caused or encouraged by intrauterine hormonal levels at different times during gestation, is not yet fully known.

Mary writes, in reference to her correspondent:

“. . . the writer identifies as a person who has gone from being male –
revealing no ambiguity, genetically or anatomically — to being female. ”

And this is pretty much the way MAry's correspondent tells her narrative.

Many transsexual people have narratives that are based on the binary underlying assumptions that society has foisted on us from the time we were given the wrong color blanket when we were born. We can’t blame the obstetrician, our parents, or others, for believing that we “belonged” to this wrong assignment, because the standard for making the determination works more than 99% of the time.

Considering the fact that the newborn’s brain and coordination are not developed well enough to enable the doctor to ask, and the baby to answer, how the baby identifies, it’s not until a transsexual person is somewhere around four years old that the situation may surface. (And this is complicated further by the fact that there are also children exhibiting similar behavior patterns who don’t turn out to be trans at all, they turn out to be orientationally different – the result of society training small children to be heterosexual. When a little boy, not yet aware of his sexual orientation, is absolutely sure that he wants to marry another boy when he grows up, he may, given the lack of information and appropriate role models, assume that he “should have been a girl.” From what I have read, this may be the case with the majority of children who present with gender differences at an early age. But even if trans kids are actually In the minority, we are still different.)

At around this time, the trans child may be insistent about her or his identity, or may learn to cope by hiding their identity and attempting to assimilate. For trans kids who take the hide and assimilate road,, the experience is often one that involves a great deal of inner turmoil. Puberty will often bring the inner conflict between societal expectations and inner reality back into a sharper focus.

At this point, coping strategies may change.

Some, often those trans kids oriented to what would be the opposite of their identified sex, are likely to transition earlier. Others, often those trans kids who are oriented toward those who would be the opposite of their incorrect assigned sex, will go through a further “hide and assimilate” route. This is how strong the societal expectation of heterosexuality is. It’s also an explanation or the bimodal emergence of transition – a much more accurate interpretation of the experience than that imposed on us by cissexual outside observers (examples: Blanchard and Bailey), and even some trans people (Anne Lawrence, as an example, an adherent of the “autogynephilia” pathology).

If we take into account the evidence for biological diversity in the human species, rather than pathologizing transsexual and other intersex people who do not fit squarely within the confines of the “male *or* female” binary construct created by society, it is better to acknowledge merely that we are not-male, not-female, but other, and that our initial assignment was incorrect, rather than forcing us into the assignment that does not match our brrain development.

So, essentially, Mary’s correspondent is not properly “male-to-female” (MTF or M2F), not having really been fully biologically male in the first place, but is rather “transsexual-to-female” (T2F) or a “woman born transsexual (“WBT”). The identification as MTF in the correspondent’s narrative is based on an acceptance of the initial societal parameters of the binary.

In her letter to Mary, her correspondent wrote:

“When we married, I wanted desperately to believe her love would cure me, and so
I didn’t tell her.”

Such a narrative is often told by trans women who adopted the “hide and assimilate” strategy. It pretty much echoes my own experience with my ex, over thirty years ago. And we had five priests concelebrating our nuptial mass.

Still, the biological fact is that transsexual people are biologically different. We do not ever belong in the sex assignment we were given at birth. Our genital tract may have developed along one of the standard blueprint paths, but our brains, or at least a critical part of them, developed along the other standard path. We are, perhaps, made more in God’s image and likeness than cissexual people. In some cultures, there has been a recognition of these differences, and trans people have been shamans, priests and priestesses, and spiritual leaders, precisely because as we were made by God we have aspects that are both male and female.

Yet, once the Roman Empire became Christianized, western society engaged in a pogrom against the various Greco-roman mystery religions and their eunuch (who in most cases would be seen as trans in modern eyes) priest(esse)s. Much like the victorious Muslims erected a mosque on the site of the Temple of Jerusalem, and on the site of the Temple of the birthplace of Rama in India, the Christian Church erected the Vatican on the site of the Phrygianum of Cybele, Magna Mater, a mystery religion that was served by gallae, who were eunuch priestesses. Augustine of Hippo was an ardent foe of the Cybele-worshippers and their gallae priestesses.

Augustine is also responsible for the Manichean influence on Christian theology. This is clearly evidenced by Mary’s “basic point to get out of the way” at the outset:

“where the rubber meets the road we all have a blowout. We all sin and fall
short of the glory of God. We are all wretches saved by His amazing grace. When
I think about my own besetting sins, I am sickened. That I go to confession with
the same stupid black marks on my own soul week after week, is just pitiful. I
must be boring Jesus to death with my petty selfishness. Actually I am not
just boring Jesus to death; I am really putting the nails in His sacred hands
and feet. We all are. We are such a mess — everyone of us.”

I feel sorry for Mary and her guilty self-flagellation, whether it is literal or merely figurative. (If Mary is involved with Opus Dei, it might well be literal, but we’ll assume the best and hope not.) But this attitude of wretched sinfulness is a mark of the Manichean influence on the development of Christianity. Indeed, there is evidence that Augustine’s Manichean background contributed to his thinking and thus further influenced the development of Christian theology. The Augustinian teachings with regard to sin, and particularly Original Sin, are based in Manichean teachings.

Augustine was also a rather despicable person, particularly in the manner in which he engineered the decision that his rival Pelagius and his teachings, which rejected Original Sin, were heretical.

It looks like it’s time to wrap up this essay. So, we’ve pretty much gotten to the end of Mary’s Rubber Meets the Road: Part I, and in our next essay we’ll start to tackle her Part II.

In this essay, we’ve pointed out that Mary’s view of biology isn’t accurate. She thinks transsexual and other intersex people should be pathologized solely because we don’t fit into the standard societal binary of sex, or rather, because she believes we should be shoe-horned into that binary in accordance with societal expectations, rather than recognizing the diversity of nature.

Before I end this essay chapter, I have one more thought. Even though we are made by God as different and diverse, transsexual and intersex people do live in a society that expects us to fit into the mold of being male or female. Otherness is societally unacceptable. So many of us seek to fit into the binary as best as we can – which includes hormonal and surgical treatment to make things so that we fit better into the sex assignment that fits us best. The acknowledgment that we do not belong to our initial assignment also comes with the understanding that we do not fully belong in the other assignment, either, except by way of reasonable accommodation. If society cannot recognize the diversity of reality and insists on the imposition of social constructs of binary sex, a humane society would do well to be accommodative to the tiny fraction of people who do not fit the constraints of the construct.

Bathrooms - An Ironic Experience at the State Capitol

Yesterday (Tuesday, April 21, 2009) I took a trip to the New York State Capitol in Albany to witness the Assembly debate and passage (for the second time in two years) of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA, A5710/S2406) in that chamber.

The floor session was scheduled to begin at 3:30 PM, so I made sure I got myself a good seat in the Assembly gallery, which is accessed from a fourth-floor hallway in the State Capitol building. I took a look at the agenda, and realized that it might be some time before the bill came up for debate and a vote, so at about 3:45 PM, with a quorum not yet present, I decided to make a brief stop at the nearest restroom, which happened to be just on the other side of the metal detector and security staff at the entrance to the gallery.

I nodded to the security staffer in the dark suit and red buttoneer, went past the metal detector, and on my way to the stall passed by two older women who were on their way out. In passing, I noted that they might be Capitol cleaning ladies, wearing colorful crocheted patchwork smocks.

As I got into the stall, I started hearing knocking. With the bad acoustics, it seemed to me as if the knocking was coming through the wall to my left. Then I heard a man’s voice saying “hello, hello.”

After getting the necessary body functions taken care of and leaving the stall to wash my hands, I heard the continued knocking, and the man’s voice say, “you’re in the wrong bathroom.” At that point I realized the knocking and hallooing might be aimed at me. I looked around – I didn’t see any urinals in there, and I thought, and weren’t there a couple of older women just in here? And then I saw the security gentleman standing politely at the open bathroom door.

Anyway, at this point I stepped through to the anteroom and then out of the bathroom, and it turned out the knocking and “hallooing” had indeed been coming from the nice, respectful, Capitol security gentleman with the red buttoneer, who repeated the assertion that I had been in the wrong bathroom. I looked around at the glass sign above the door which clearly said “women” and then looked at the security man and told him, “No, that was the correct bathroom.”

His response was to say that “a couple of ladies” had complained. It must have been those cleaning staffers who were on their way out as I was entering.

Then he asked me, “Do you have I.D.?”

Now, I know that may have crossed the line – we don’t ask people for their I.D. when they use the bathroom. However, he was a Capitol security staffer in charge of the metal detector, and asking for I.D. is a permissible thing in connection with that process, though I hadn’t been asked for it when I passed through the metal detector. Regardless of whether he was entitled to see identity papers, I decided to take the easiest course, and opened my handbag, pulled out my driver’s license and handed it to him, with my as-yet-unwashed hands, to take a look for himself.

This was apparently satisfactory. So I asked, “Do you think I can go back in and wash my hands now?”

He had no problem with that.

I have never been confronted with this situation before, though I have heard of situations like it. There was that time a few years ago when I was on line at the Steak Escape fast food counter at the food court at the Palisade Center Mall, when I noticed a group of teens furtively whispering and alternately peering at me. One of them approached me to ask the time – and after I looked at my watch and gave it to him, he returned to the group to announce, “she’s a woman.” Apparently my voice passed muster.

I can just imagine what it might have been with the security staffer at the Capitol if I had not had my driver’s license corrected in accordance with New York DMV regulations – a situation that confronts many trans women who are early in transition, and have not yet gotten legal name changes and documentation in order.

I also thought of what the situation might have been like had the security staffer entered the ladies’ room to pound on the stall door and demand my immediate egress. That would have been frightening and upsetting, and I would have made a rather indignant and immediate protest and complaint. As it was, the situation was only mildly annoying.

I thought of just how ironic this was, being “clocked” by a couple of Capitol cleaning ladies who hadn’t even spoken to me, on the very day the Assembly was about to consider passing GENDA again.

And, of course, this entire experience turned out to be an ironic preface to the floor discussion between Assemblymember Gottfried and a Republican member whose name sounded to me like “Condon” (but there is apparently not a “Condon” in the Assembly)[ADDED NOTE: According to Caprice Bellefleur, who was watching the proceedings on television, the Republican member with the questions was Assemblymember Conte, who ended up voting for the bill - so it seems as if this Assemblymember was satisfied with Assemblymember Gottfried's explanations on the floor.], which predictably turned to the usual but politely-stated outrage over the so-called “bathroom issue.”

The “bathroom issue” seems to be based on the bogeyman that the law would encourage crossdressed male sexual predators to be lurking in bathrooms waiting to pounce on women. GENDA would not protect sexual predators, even if they disguise themselves.

However, GENDA would protect that poor early-transitioner who doesn’t have her I.D. in order from being barred from the correct bathroom.

The idea that innocent transgendered and transsexual women should be barred from the appropriate public rest rooms because cisgendered women might feel “uncomfortable” is reminiscent of the policy of racial segregation once practiced in the American South.

The comfort level of white women was “protected.” They were "safe" from having to share the use of toilet seats that were also used by women of color. In many places, there were three facilities – Women, Men, Colored. One might presume that “colored” men and women were supposed to have no problem sharing the same toilets – I guess African-American women were expected to deal with men the seat left up in public facilities, while white women only had to worry about other white women peeing on the seat.) Their segregated white childen were “protected” from exposure to African-American kids in the classroom. In hotels and restaurants, their only contact with African-Americans was with menial cleaning and kitchen staff, and perhaps entertainers, but they were assured that they would be sleeping on sheets that were not shared with African Americans (perhaps not thinking of the fact that the laundress and the maid had at least touched these items). Of course, there was always the shared bus, but even that was separated based on who could sit where.

My own discomfiture is with these ostensibly cissexual cleaning ladies (that’s what they looked like, anyway, with their crochet-patchwork smocks – they certainly weren’t dressed like Capitol professional or office staff – they looked more like the shabbily-dressed denizens of seedy bingo parlors) thinking their feeling of “uncomfortability” with transsexual women (or women they “clock” as transsexual or transgender women, who might just be butch-looking cissexual women, or cissexual women exhibiting symptoms of Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS)) entitles them to bar people like me from using the correct public restroom.

If they feel that uncomfortable, I welcome them to “hold it” until they get to the privacy of their own homes. Their comfort level issue should not force me out of an appropriate public restroom. Of course, if they were educated on the issues, they might have a lessened sense of discomfort. They’re not being asked to share the ladies’ room with men, after all.

I actually felt bad for the security staffer – once he had the complaint, he felt it appropriate to use his position of apparent authority to make me prove my entitlement to use the bathroom facility near his security station. I doubt that he was aware of any guidelines as to how to approach this situation, or whether he had the necessary jurisdiction to make the inquiry. And I am sure that he felt terribly uncomfortable about the entire situation, especially after he reviewed my driver’s license to see the big capital “F” on it.

Perhaps he was unaware that the City of Albany already has an appropriate local law protecting transgender people from discrimination like this. I wonder whether there is some policy that the Capitol, being state property, is exempt from the application of local anti-discrimination law, or whether the issue has been raised.

I am not sure who supervises the cleaning personnel (or Capitol staff, if that’s what those two women were). My best guess with regard to the security gentleman, since he was not a uniformed state trooper, is that he is probably a civilian State Police security screening technician associated with the State Police Security Services Unit.

In any event, it might not be a bad idea for some basic sensitivity education to be provided so that gaffes like this don’t happen in the future. I am going to bring this quietly to the attention of State Senator Tom Duane, whose office is just a little way down the hall from the bathroom in question, and trust the good senator to know exactly what to do and who to contact.

Next week is Equality and Justice Day – and there will be hundreds of trans people in Albany, in the throng of over 1,600 people expected to be there for GENDA, Dignity for All Students, and Marriage. I’d hate to see situations occurring where someone without the right documentation gets barred from the appropriate bathroom.

Another “Galileo Moment” from the Vatican?

Benedict XVI’s 2008 Christmas greeting message to the Roman Curia and Prelature, given on December 22, 2008, is finally available in an official English text from the Vatican website. Not having an official English translation previously made it more difficult to divine the exact meaning of the Pope’s words.

There is a controversial part of the address which was interpreted in the press as being a condemnation of transsexuality, homosexuality, or both, depending on how the translation was made into English from the previously available Italian or German versions. While I am aware of (and disagree with) the Vatican position on transsexual people from the 2003 Catholic News Service news report of a leaked Year 2000 “sub secretum” document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, after reviewing the official English translation, I am not entirely sure that the Pope’s statement really constitutes a condemnation of my people. But the Pope’s talk can be interpreted as an attack on feminism, gay marriage, and “gender” that isn’t based on birth-genital-essentialism.

Here is the relevant portion:

“Since faith in the Creator is an essential part of the Christian creed, the Church cannot and must not limit herself to passing on to the faithful the message of salvation alone. She has a responsibility towards creation, and must also publicly assert this responsibility. In so doing, she must not only defend earth, water and air as gifts of creation belonging to all. She must also protect man from self-destruction. What is needed is something like a human ecology, correctly understood.

If the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as man and woman, and demands that this order of creation be respected, this is not some antiquated metaphysics. What is involved here is faith in the Creator and a readiness to listen to the “language” of creation. To disregard this would be the self-destruction of man himself, and hence the destruction of God’s own work.

What is often expressed and understood by the term “gender” ultimately ends up being man’s attempt at self-emancipation from creation and the Creator. Man wants to be his own master, and alone – always and exclusively – to determine everything that concerns him. Yet in this way he lives in opposition to the truth, in opposition to the Creator Spirit.

Rain forests deserve indeed to be protected, but no less so does man, as a creature having an innate “message” which does not contradict our freedom, but is instead its very premise.

The great scholastic theologians described marriage, understood as the life-long bond between a man and a woman, as a sacrament of creation, which the Creator himself instituted and which Christ – without modifying the “message” of creation – then made part of the history of his covenant with humanity.

An integral part of the Church proclamation must be a witness to the Creator Spirit present in nature as a whole, and, in a special way, in the human person, created in God’s image.

From this perspective, we should go back to the Encyclical Humanae Vitae: the intention of Pope Paul VI was to defend love against sex as a consumer good, the future against the exclusive claims of the present, and human nature against its manipulation.”

Time Magazine’s brief commentary, based on earlier unofficial translations indicated:

“Without actually using the word [transsexual], Benedict took a subtle swipe at those who might undergo sex-change operations or otherwise attempt to alter their God-given gender. Defend "the nature of man against its manipulation," Benedict told the priests, bishops and cardinals gathered Monday in the ornate Clementine hall. "The Church speaks of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is respected." The Pope again denounced the contemporary idea that gender is a malleable definition. That path, he said, leads to a "self-emancipation of man from creation and the Creator."”

I think it may be a stretch to call this a “subtle” swipe at transsexuals, without looking at the background that leads ti this conclusion. It would require a misunderstanding of the nature of transsexuality to come to this conclusion. Of course, there is every indication of serious error in the Roman Catholic Church’s approach to transsexual people that involves just such a misunderstanding.

There is very little in the way of official and available doctrinal material published by the Church on the subject of transsexuals. The most prominent item is a “sub secretum” document sent by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to papal nuncios in the year 2000, and then distributed to bishops in 2002 (and then leaked to Catholic News Service in February 2003). My only source for the test is the tantalizingly brief CNS report – I have never seen the actual document.

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- After years of study, the Vatican's doctrinal congregation has sent church leaders a confidential document concluding that "sex-change" procedures do not change a person's gender in the eyes of the church. Consequently, the document instructs bishops never to alter the sex listed in parish baptismal records and says Catholics who have undergone "sex-change" procedures are not eligible to marry, be ordained to the priesthood or enter religious life, according to a source familiar with the text. The document was completed in 2000 and sent "sub secretum" (under secrecy) to the papal representatives in each country to provide guidance on a case-by-case basis to bishops. But when it became clear that many bishops were still unaware of its existence, in 2002 the congregation sent it to the presidents of bishops' conferences as well. "The key point is that the (transsexual) surgical operation is so superficial and external that it does not change the personality. If the person was male, he remains male. If she was female, she remains female," said the source.

From what I can glean from the news reports, the position announced secretly by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith appears to be a “birth-genital- essentialist” view, that gender identity is determined by the physiology of one’s genitalia at the time of birth. Genitalia develop along one of two duct systems wolffian and mullerian, both of which are present during fetal development. The duct system that remains undeveloped eventually withers away after birth. The result of the Church’s genital-based essentialism is the belief that there are only two possible sex assignments, each based on genital shape at birth.

This genital essentialism fails to take into account the physiological development of the entire fetus. Focus solely on genitals, though, and in better than 99.9% of all people, the other physiological developments, particularly in the brain, are consistent with genital development, and thus, for those people, the Church’s genital-based essentialism actually seems to work.

However, the Church ignores the scientific evidence of different physiological development in the makeup of transsexual brains that leads to a gender identity that is opposite that which is expected based on genital expectations. This leads to an erroneous understanding of te nature of that one-in-a-thousand who does not fit into the societal and Church expectation of gender.

The psychological factor of gender identity has a physiological basis in brain structure, according to the most recent scientific authority. This was first identified in a Dutch study made in 1994. While in most people the brain structures are in accord with the external genitalia, which is not true with transsexuals and transgender individuals.

The physiological situation with genital formation is also not clear-cut in all cases. In addition to male and female, there are intersexed individuals. Intersex is the current term that covers persons formerly identified as hermaphrodites, that is persons with genital structures that contain some of the elements commonly attributable to “male” and some elements commonly attributable to “female” sex assignments. It also includes those individuals with chromosomal variations that vary from standard XX and XY in the 46th chromosome. In addition, there are persons with XY chromosomes who have an insensitivity to androgens, whose chromosomes are technically “male” but whose bodies develop into a “female” form because of an inability of their cells to process testosterone.

The social issues relating to transgender, transsexual and intersexed individuals are not easily dismissed. We are not some sort of new phenomenon, we have been around since the dawn of human history. Scientists, no longer blinded by ancient Aristotelian pronouncements or Victorian Darwinian theory regarding “sexual selection” have begun to observe that binary gender is not the universal rule, even in the animal kingdom, often used as a rationale for observations of natural law.

It is easy for the Church hierarchy to dismiss a tiny minority of people who are different as being “disordered,” rather than recognizing the serious error the Chuch itself has made in its birth-genital-essentialist assumptions.

The Church hierarchy uses a very selective interpretation of sacred scripture to come to the conclusion that humanity is divided into male *or* female.

If we refer to the Bible and other ancient sources, it is clear that intersexed, transgender and transsexual people existed in biblical times. There are over twenty references in biblical texts to “eunuchs.” This is a catchall for a number of different sexual minorities not classified in accordance with the binary in accordance with external genitalia.

The clearest recognition of this comes in Matthew 19:12, in which Jesus is quoted describing different sorts of eunuchs. Some are born eunuchs, some are made eunuchs by human intervention, and some become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus was careful as to the last, stating that only those who can accept this should accept it.

If we look at the Pope’s 2008 Christmas greeting message to the Curia and Prelature on one level, it would seem to be first an attack on feminist philosophy that stresses equal human rights and dignity. Just in March 2008, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a ruling against “gender-neutral” references to God, such as “The Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier” and reaffirmed the patriarchal formulation of “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Cardinal Urbano Navarrete (a Jesuit priest recently elevated to the rank of Cardinal in a rare case of receiving the rank without being ordained a bishop, who is also one of the Vatican’s “experts” on transsexuals) penned the official commentary of the ruling. Any baptism using a gender-neutral inclusive formulation has been ruled to be invalid.

On another level, the Pope’s Christmas greeting to the Curia and Prelature is yet another of the Church’s attacks on gender-neutral marriage. The Church can only legitimately speak to sacramental marriage for members of the Church, and not to the secular civil recognition of marriage and marriage rights. For the Church to go beyond the sacramental issue and to widen the scope to insist that its official prejudice be inscribed into secular law, is an outrage, especially in nations such as the United States that recognize the free exercise of religion, and prohibit the government from imposing a religious belief on the people as a matter of law.

If the Pope’s statement Is to be construed as an attack on the transgender community, it requires an acceptance of the prerequisite genital-based “gender essentialism” which is the first fallacy in the Church’s gender identity structure. And we know from what little material there is that is available, that this is the Church position – so I must conclude that even if the language may make it seem a bit less clear, the Pope’s message may fairly be construed as yet another demeaning of the transgender community.

The scriptural reading on which we should meditate when we read the Pope’s message is Matthew 7:15-27 (Douay-Rheims translation):

15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in the clothing of sheep, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

16 By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?

17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and the evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit.

18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit.

19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.

20 Wherefore by their fruits you shall know them.

21 Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.

22 Many will say to me in that day: Lord, Lord, have not we prophesied in thy name, and cast out devils in thy name, and done many miracles in thy name?

23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, you that work iniquity.

24 Every one therefore that heareth these my words, and doth them, shall be likened to a wise man that built his house upon a rock,

25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock.

26 And every one that heareth these my words, and doth them not, shall be like a foolish man that built his house upon the sand,

27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof.

Benedict XVI is one of these false prophets – he wears the mantle of the shepherd of the flock, but by showing that he has little concern for different sheep, he reveals his ravening wolf nature. By basing his, and the Church’s, arguments on false premises that are against scientific wisdom, he is like the tree that bears evil fruit, or the man who builds his house on a foundation of shallow sand without deeply-rooted pilings.

The message as against feminism? The Catholic Church bears the evil fruit of patriarchal domination. One need only read German Theologian Uta Ranke Heinemann’s work “Eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven” to get a grasp of the sexist misogyny that has gripped the Roman Church from the time of the Church Fathers in the fourth century.

The message as against gender-neutral marriage? Many of the documents issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on the issue of homosexuality are based on false interpretation of sacred scripture.

The message as against transsexual and transgender people? The foundation of the Church’s “sub secretum” teaching is founded on the shallow sand of an ill-conceived understanding of natural law, based more on Aristotle and “Scholastic theologians” than on the observations of modern science. It is a teaching that, like the condemnation of Galileo, will not stand up to the rain, the flood, and the wind of rational scientific inquiry.

When God created human beings, we were created “male and female” in the image and likeness of God – this means that God is “male and female” for us to be created in God’s image. And each of us, individually, is not only male or only female, but is “male and female,” just as God is. Indeed, some may be “mostly male” and others “mostly female” and still others may have distinct parts that developed ion different directions. But we are all children of God.

Benedict’s word’s are truly based on “antiquated metaphysics” and are not rooted in science or natural law. When the Church speaks of the nature of the human being as “man and woman,” Benedict means rather “man *or* woman” – and he disregards the “language of Creation” found in his own Sacred Scripture.

In the past year, a Reform Rabbi from Pleasantville, New York, reported on his discovery of a hidden Name of God found in the Tetragrammaton (the four letters that represent “the Name of God” – usually rendered in English as YHWH). The Rabbi realized that if the Tetragrammaton were to be read and pronounced *backward* it would result in the Name of God working out as Hebrew (hu/hee) for “He/She” – which correlates directly with the clue found in Genesis 1:27 – that “male and female” is the image and likeness of God.

Rabbi Mark Sameth writes in his article, after thirteen years of research, “If we read the text as a mystic might, paying extremely close attention, assuming that the text conceals more than it reveals, we may find hints regarding God’s androgynous nature, so to speak, peeking out through the surface level of the Torah.” He comes to the conclusion, correctly I think, that the God of the Israelites was not a masculine, patriarchal deity, but a he/she bi-gendered God. This is a far cry from the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic utterances of Benedict XVI – stated in soft tones and with great apparent concern for the welfare of humanity, but with the sharp teeth and fangs showing beneath the mantle.

Against this backdrop of an all-inclusive God, the Roman Catholic Church’s ruling clinging to masculine-gendered terminology for the Trinity even more “antiquated” and illogical. Of course, recognizing a bi-gendered God might mean that the Vatican would have to revisit the idea of the eligibility of women for the priesthood, and the eligibility of transgender people for any kind of religious vocation.

The Roman Catholic Church eventually “got it” when it came to Galileo, even if it took nearly 400 years for Benedict XVI’s predecessor John Paul II, to get around to apologizing for the Inquisition’s actions under Urban VIII, and rehabilitating Galileo, previously found to have been a heretic.

Perhaps Benedict XVI could learn from this quote from Galileo “The intention of the Holy Spirit is to teach how to go to heaven and not how to go to the heavens.”

Maybe Benedict might work on helping Roman Catholics make their own marriages work better, rather than imposing on a secular world the narrow, ill-conceived antiquated, outdated and and unscientific views of the Church on the rights of women, gays and trans people. When the Church meddles with Caesar, it is as bad as Caesar meddling with the Church.

Why Governor David Paterson "gets it" (and an afterthought as to how he doesn't)

Ever since I met New York Governor David Paterson some years ago when he was the New York State Senate minority leader, I knew that he "got it" about the need for legal recognition of transgender rights under the state human rights laws.

Just yesterday (Thursday, July 17, 2008), Governor Paterson gave a speech to attendees at the national convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (N.A.A.C.P.) held in Cincinnati, Ohio. In an interview given after the speech, he indirectly explained the context of how he came to this understanding, as he is quoted in the New York Times article cited above:

Governor Paterson’s views on discrimination have been shaped by the fact that he is both black and legally blind. He said one of the most painful experiences he had with discrimination came from a black businessman who refused to hire him because of his blindness.

"That’s when I realized this is kind of a universal problem that exists, this fear of the unknown, fear of others displaying difference," he said.

[citation: Paterson, at N.A.A.C.P., Warns of Racism’s Power, by Jeremy W. Peters, New York Times, published Friday July 18, 2008]

The impact of this insight is precisely the reason Governor Paterson has embraced and supported the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA), the Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) and the Dignity for All Youth Act (DAYA), as well as the bill to make New York’s Marriage laws completely gender-neutral.

People who are transgendered, or gay, experience discrimination for the same reason that African-Americans still experience discrimination – it’s this, as he put it, "fear of the unknown, fear of others displaying difference."

It’s the reason a major title insurance company fired me as its chief underwriting counsel in January 2000. Just before Thanksgiving 1999, on my own time and after work, I testified at a public hearing, imploring Westchester County legislators to restore language that would have better clarified coverage for transgender people to the then-proposed county human rights bill. My testimony was televised on local and regional news, some lawyer in Long Island realized exactly who I was and called the company headquarters in Texas and asked "what kind of pervert do you have working for you?"

It took two board meetings, one for the national company and one for the New York subsidiary, but despite an excellent history of job performance, I became persona non grata at that company because by being "different" I sparked that visceral and instinctual "fear of the unknown" in the hearts of the company’s management – the same management that only a few months earlier was effusively praising my work.

In the meantime, I am hoping Governor Paterson issues an Executive Order some time soon that provides employment protection to transgender people in state employment - this is something the governor can do without waiting for the legislature. It's something trans community activists and allies were working on obtaining from former governor Eliot Spitzer's administration before he resigned. Now that the legislative session is over, perhaps Governor Paterson will be able to turn his attention to this bit of work.

Afterthought: During his N.A.A.C.P. convention speech, Governor Paterson took the time to condemn the recent satirical cover illustration from The New Yorker magazine, that depicted Senator and presidential Candidate Barack Obama and his wife Michelle, as militant radicals seeking to destroy the United States. He called it "one of the most malignant, vicious covers of a magazine I have ever seen."

I wouldn’t condemn the magazine for running the cover – I know the magazine’s purpose was to show just how malignant and vicious the lies, innuendoes and false rumors some conservative Republicans have been spreading about Senator Obama and his wife – things like how he is supposedly a Muslim extremist, or that their "fist bump" is some kind of black radical secret handshake, or that the Senator was educated in a "madrassas" school (depicted as a fundamentalist Muslim school the teaches radical Islamost "Jihad against America" propaganda as part of its interpretation of the Holy Qu’ran, its only textbook).

By printing the cover, the magazine exposed the vicious lies to the light of day as exactly how ridiculous these are – and the reaction the cover has inspired is exactly the reaction intended by The New Yorker – except I think The New Yorker editors expected more sophisticated readers to understand that the cover itself, by being so "over the top" was intended as satire.

Governor Paterson is not alone in his condemnation of the magazine cover.

The reaction to the New Yorker cover is reminiscent of the reaction of abhorrence that another famous satire, a 1729 essay by Jonathan Swift, entitled A Modest Proposal, once evoked.

As with the cartoon cover, Swift had the experience of having some, including some rather sophisticated and intelligent people, take his satire seriously and react with abhorrence.

So in this instance, I’ll part with Governor Paterson, but only slightly, and condemn the malicious and repugnant lies that were satirized by the magazine cover, rather than the cover itself.

The Coverage of the Protest

Click here to go to a site where you can see the televised coverage of the protest.

The television coverage, on local Cablevision Newschannel 12 also includes clips from the county legislators' bad drag performance of You Gotta Have a Gimmick from the musical Gypsy.

There were three (and after the cameras left, a fourth arrived) protestors. The response was not bad for an action that was planned only 2-1/2 hours earlier.

There was also coverage in the local newspaper, The New York Journal News.

Responses on the http://www.lohud.com/ website ranged from supportive to clueless.

There has been internet coverage of the protest and the reasoning for it.

Click here for Autumn Sandeen's article that explains it all.

And for an interesting criticism by Monica Roberts of my analogy of the county legislators' performances to a "blackface minstrel show," click here.

As a note aimed at Monica Roberts commentary, I entirely agree with her about the performance of the performer "Shirley Q. Liquor" who actually combines bad blackface with bad drag, but I do think she may have missed my point - that the county legislators who were involved in the particular "dragface" show were criticized not because they are cissexual and straight, though those factors make it just a tad bit more offensive, but because they are all on the Westchester County Board of Legislators (and not only that, are on one of the committees that the bill has to get through before a vote) that has "dragged" its feet for more than eight years to get a simple technical amendment to the county human rights law passed, to clarify that the coverage afforded under the law does in fact cover transgender people.

Drag Show Protest Press Release

The New York Transgender Rights Organization

---PRESS RELEASE--- ---PRESS RELEASE--- ---PRESS RELEASE---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NYTRO CONDEMNS COUNTY DRAG SHOW

White Plains, New York, June 13, 2008 – The New York Transgender Rights Organization (NYTRO) protests the June 12, 2008 drag show organized by County legislator Bernice Spreckman, in which County legislators Ken Jenkins, Vito Pinto, and perhaps others, appeared in a mockery of transgender people to the laughs of an audience of seniors.
“The Westchester County legislature has failed for nearly eight years to amend the county human rights law to explicitly protect transgender people,” said Joann Prinzivalli, the state director of NYTRO and a White Plains resident. “It is shocking to see county legislators who have dragged their feet on this vital issue doing the equivalent of a KKK blackface show to mock my people.”

In 1999, former county legislators George Latimer and Andrea Stewart-Cousins, both now in the state legislature, promised to rectify the deficiency in the third draft of the original county human rights law enacted in December 1999. At the time, the language that would have protected transgender people was dropped from the bill as a compromise, according to Latimer, because this was requested by the New York Catholic Archdiocese Office of the Family. A bill to rectify the situation was actually introduced in 2005 by County legislator Lois Bronz, but went nowhere in committee.

A poll done by Global Strategy Group in February 2008 shows that statewide public support for legal protection of transgender people stands at 78% of registered voters. Last week, the New York State Assembly passed the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) by a vote of 108-33, with better than a two-thirds majority. Prinzivalli said “The public support is out there. The time has come for county government to get there ahead of the curve.”

The New York Transgender Rights Organizartion (NYTRO) is an unincorporated association with chapters around New York State. The organization is dedicated to advance the recognition of human rights of transgender and gender variant people, who are often subjected to the worst discrimination in employment, housing, insurance, medical care and public accommodations.

NYTRO State Director Joann Prinzivalli plans an unscheduled press conference at the steps to the (presently closed) main entrance to the Michaelian County Office on Martine Avenue in White Plains at 1:30 PM today, June 13, 2008.

- 30 -

The Shot Over The Bow

The New York Transgender Rights Organization

---PRESS RELEASE--- ---PRESS RELEASE--- ---PRESS RELEASE---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NYTRO CHAIR JOANN PRINZIVALLI’S STATEMENT OF
NON-RESIGNATION MADE AT THE JUNE 11, 2008
LGBT ADVISORY BOARD TOWN HALL MEETING

My name is Joann Prinzivalli. While I am a member of the Advisory Board, and have been a member from its inception in 2002, I am making these comments, not in the capacity of advisor to the County Executive, but in my role as State Director of the New York Transgender Rights Organization.

Since the Advisory Board’s inception, the board has sought to provide education, guidance and advice to the County Executive on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender issues.

The board has made a good deal of progress on sexual orientation issues, but has been almost completely frustrated at every turn on issues affecting the transgender community.

Recommendations made to the County Executive that relate to getting his support for a bill in the County legislature to amend the county human rights law to provide explicit protection to transgender people in the county have been met with “we’re not ready for that yet.”

In 2007, and again this year, the Advisory board made a recommendation to the County Executive that he issue an executive order protecting transgender people in county employment. I was told that the 2007 draft was sent to the Law Department, and it wasn’t approved in time for the 2007 Town Hall meeting. When I asked in January of this year what progress was being made, and if there were any issues, I was told that no one knew about the executive order draft.

So I asked the Board to resubmit it this year. And the result is that we get the answer, “we’re not ready for that yet.”

Late in 2007 there was an incident involving the County Police arresting a transgender individual. The individual advised the arresting officer that he was still physically female, but since his hormone treatment had already lowered his voice and allowed him beard growth, the arresting officer did not believe him and did not advise the desk officer. The individual was placed in the male holding tank. I determined that this could have had bad consequences. After doing extensive research, I drafted a procedural memo for the purpose of starting a dialogue with the Commissioner of Public Safety. The Advisory Board approved the recommendation and forwarded it to the County Executive with the further recommendation that the County Executive help arrange a meeting with the commissioner to discuss appropriate procedure.

After months of being stonewalled, I was advised that county officials had determined that the County Police already have appropriate policies in place. But when I asked if the policies were in writing, there was no response. Apparently, it’s just a matter of “we’re not ready for that yet.”

Two years ago, the County Executive was ahead of the curve when he issued an executive order recognizing out-of-state gender-neutral marriages for county agency purposes. It was only this past month, nearly two years later, that Governor Paterson has done the same thing for state agencies.

But when it comes to transgender issues, we are still getting stonewalled.

This past week, the State Assembly overwhelmingly approved GENDA, a bill that would give human rights protections to transgender New Yorkers. The preliminary vote count was 102 – 33. Even the opponents who rose in debate acknowledged that it is time that transgender people in New York State must be protected under the law.

The writing on the wall – the answer “we’re not ready for that yet” is no longer acceptable.

Perhaps County Executive Spano needs just a little more time to get it.

In January, I was prepared to resign from the Advisory Board if we did not make progress on at least one trans proposal by tonight. With the passage of GENDA last week in the Assembly, I am now prepared to give the County Executive just a little more time.
So I am not resigning tonight as I originally planned. Not yet.

In wrestling with the ethical issues, I came to the conclusion that as long as I am expressly not acting in my capacity as a member of the Advisory Board, I can take action as an individual citizen, or in other capacities, to openly protest the lack of action from our county government.

I will no longer voluntarily restrict myself to quiet diplomacy behind closed doors in attempting to improve the plight of the transgender community in Westchester County.

The time has come. We are no longer willing to wait silently.

Thank you all for your time.