Just thinking out loud...
1. It seems clear that there are people born with exotic hormonal conditions, or exotic genetic conditions or exotic anatomical conditions which make questions of sexual identity complicated and challenging for them. And if someone is in that situation, young or old, they should certainly be supported in trying to find a way to overcome those challenges and find a life of meaning and wholeness and fulfillment. Even if young, those people should receive whatever medical intervention is appropriate to resolving their difficulties. Whether surgery or hormones or other treatment, just as if they had a cleft palate or needed their tonsils removed.
2. On the other hand, it also seems clear that some people are in well-formed, well-functioning bodies of a particular sexual identity, but they nevertheless don't feel comfortable in their own skin. I don't think I can understand that feeling. I have a hard time not seeing it as some kind of profound delusion or some kind of deep ingratitude towards God. At the same time, such people must obviously be suffering and deserve empathy.
3. Questions of identity can be intimate and complicated. And certainly some issues which seem simple on the outside might not feel that way from the inside. So it can be presumptuous for outsiders to dictate to an individual what their identitiy should be.
4. I keep thinking of the fact that Bruce / Caitlyn Jenner has lived as a male longer than I've been alive. Bruce was married to women three times. Has been a father a grandfather. Also Bruce Jenner killed someone in February of 2015 and then came out as transgender in April in 2015. That's certainly not to say there weren't pre-existing difficulties around gender, but I know that if I had killed somebody, I would probably want to reboot my life as well.
5. Adult citizens have the right to do what they want. Change their names, change their bodies with drugs or surgery. But children are generally not mature enough capable of making such profound decisions. The issues seem much trickier in their case.
6. I mean, if I had children and they came up to me saying "Dad, I don't want to be black. In fact I don't even feel black" I wouldn't want them to dye their hair blonde, get blue-eyed contacts, take skin lighteners etc. I would want to teach them to have self esteem and to love the body they are in. So why would it be different if a child in a male body says they don't want to be male. Or if a child in a female body says they don't want to be female? What is the difference between body-postivity when it comes to race vs. sexual identity?
No comments:
Post a Comment