THE PERILS OF TRANSGENDERISM

Recently a lady told me she's going to start using the men's restrooms when in public.  Not because she identifies as a man, but because she feels it will be safer.  She said it tongue in cheek (I think).  Said she saw Wolf Blitzer last week interviewing a couple of "characters" (her word, referring to male-to-female men in dress) advocating the "any bathroom is okay" proposition.  She now thinks she'll be better off in the men's room, bathrooms she says are cleaner than the women's.

​Cleaner than the women's?  I'll take her word for it, never having been in a women's restroom -- except for once, by mistake.  I was traveling through Waynesboro, Mississippi, years ago and stopped at the Walmart to "rest".  Tired, I entered the restroom, lost in thought, barely looking up at the posted gender symbol as I hurriedly entered.  After a couple of minutes of holding court in one stall I hear a couple of female voices walk in.  My mind froze, like a deer in headlights, wondering why women were in the men's room.  Hmmm.  Then I realized I hadn't seen any urinals!  

​Anyway, I hurriedly got it together and when the voices collected at the other end I scooted out with my head down, walking out to safety.  I don't know that there were transgender people in there since this happened years ago long before the word had been invented.  Looking back on it, it's funny.  My wife still laughs about it -- even more so these days.

​Anyway, the issue with transgender is not so funny -- especially for those who are confused.  Transgender is the state of one's gender identity (male, female, both, or neither) not matching one's biological gender.  It's an uncommon phenomenon occurring mainly in teenagers.  They have highly specific medical AND mental health needs and even on a good day the care of the condition mandates a mental health therapist specializing in gender issues, along with a clinician.

​The mental health needs are paramount for a person with sexual confusion, and is glaringly explicated in the psychiatric manual Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), because for it to happen there must be a cerebral or psychic act of the will, either consciously or unconsciously.  There is no genetic explanation for the psychic conflict; that is, no biological explanation for the disorder, which the main media and LGBTQSM community does not want to hear and will go to great lengths of social tyranny to dispel.

​Gender dysphoria generally resolves itself after puberty.  In the DSM section on gender dysphoria as many as 98% of gender confused boys, and 88% of gender confused girls eventually accept their biological sex after passing through puberty.  There can be a time of confusion, experimentation, and peer pressure.  The boys have no male friends because they're autistic, or they're creative, drawn to beauty, and are not athletically gifted.  Girls, for various reasons often have no female friends, have athletic abilities and go on to identify with masculinity. 

​So there's this craving for acceptance.  And they feel somehow they'll be accepted if they become the opposite sex, essentially moved to become what they love.  This is not normal child development.  Healthy child development is to have a child appreciate their own unique special God-given gifts and abilities.  And there are parents who are not responsible enough and encourage these children to have friends of the opposite sex, with whom they identify and want to be like them.

​Years ago Johns Hopkins Hospital ceased sex-reassignment surgery because of what the psychiatrist-in-chief called an "unusual and radical treatment" for "mental disorders."  The psychiatrist-in-chief said they realized they were "fundamentally cooperating with a mental illness," concluding that "as psychiatrists, I thought, we would do better to concentrate on trying to fix their minds and not their genitalia."

​According to the CDC, 1 in 4 transgender has HIV.  It is thought there are many who have it and don't know it.  HIV is especially high in black transgender; 56% of black transgender are HIV positive.  Among 3.3 million HIV testing events in 2013, the highest percentage of those testing positive were in transgender.  So high is the HIV exposure rate among transgender people that this is the CDC's highest preventive strategy for HIV prevention.

​Moreover, many of those who are confused about their sex are psychologically driven to obtain "instant curves", by attending increasingly popular "pumping parties" where non-surgical silicone (the kind found in Fix-a-Flat) is injected, usually by shared needles, resulting in disfiguring and even death.  The impetus for this behavior is a mental aberration, not a somatic one.

​Throw in the high rates of depression, suicide, suicidal thinking, anxiety, body image issues, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder that abounds in this population and it makes one's head spin as to why many in the media, the politically elite, the ideologically-driven, and some health professionals, continue to facilitate and encourage those with this mental illness to continue down this path.  It is sad.  Are they being used?

​This is not to say that every single person confused about their sex will incur these health risks.  Even people who've smoked rabbit weed since they were 13 can and do live to old age without cancer, etc.  But as a group, looking objectively at the science and the consequences of facilitating the delusion it's not unreasonable to think rationally about what is happening to these unfortunate folks.

​There will come a time, hopefully, when those cooperating with the delusion will realize the high health risks associated with this problem and instead favor the more compassionate path of "fixing their minds and not their genitalia."  To wit, many now report Bruce Jenner admits he made a mistake and wishes to revert back to his birth sex.

​We are all called to have compassion for those who have a cross to bear, as we are all made in His image and are children of God.  So can we rightly ask the question:  Is it God's design for humanity that on any given day a person can wake up being one gender and think they are the other?
​