In a recent post I told of Pope Francis' statement that "Gender ideology is demonic!" We now read of a 73-year-old American transsexual who has just won a
verdict that Medicare must pay his/her medical expenses for genital
reconstruction surgery. He (or she) had been living as a woman off and on ever
since he was a teenager, but at the age of 68 he decided to make a permanent
sex reassignment. Given that same-sex marriage is legal in 19 states, many are
pushing the cause of transgender people as the new new civil rights movement. The
complete normality of transexualism is becoming the new accepted view, as people
are increasingly afraid of saying no to any desire as long as it hurts no one
else. Before jumping on this bandwagon, it might behoove us to consider the the fruits of this procedure. Those with transsexualism,
after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behavior,
and psychiatric morbidity than the general population. Findings suggest that
sex reassignment, although lessening gender dysphoria, may not suffice as
treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and
somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group. Yes, patients who suffer
from gender dysphoria deserve sympathy and psychiatric treatment, not
government funding for mutilating surgery.
MONDAY last I posted that Pope Francis might not be all that the secular media consider him to be, recommending a First Things piece on the matter. Today we read of Archbishop Chaput's interview with John Allen of the National Catholic (?) Reporter , in Rio for WYD. What caught my attention was the Archbishops's comment that alienated, non-serious Catholics perhaps interpret the Pope's openness as being less concerned than his predecessors with doctrine, and that it is already true that "the right wing of the Church" has not been happy with his election. As I argued in The Smoke of Satan , and as George Weigel has eloquently posited in Evangelical Catholicism , the political terms left and right are woefully inadequate as measurements of one's standing in the Body of Christ. There are only the orthodox, and the heterodox.
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