Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who are in an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same gender. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Connecting itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave immorality, (Genesis 19:1-29; Romans 1;24-27; 1 Corinthians 6:10; 1 Timothy 1;10) tradition has always declared that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, contrary to the natural law, which close the sexual act to the gift of life, and do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (Catechism of the Catholic Church CCC 2357)
Taken
from the testimonials of transsexuals who decide to return to their original
gender, their words can be taken as a caution to anyone who’s entertaining such
a thought.
For
example, Walt Heyer had sex change to become a woman when he was 42 years old. After
eight years living as Laura Jensen, he reverted back to being a man, deeming
that the desire to change gender roots from psychological trauma.[1]
Heyer
controversially disputes that Gender Dysphoria is a genetic disorder.
Now at 74 living in Los Angeles, he acts as a counselor to those considering a sex change surgery. Psychological
vetting of patients before operation is inadequate, he claims. He should never have been allowed to have the sex change in the first place, he says.
Undergoing
gender reassignment surgery to become a woman had a tremendous, destructive
process on his life.
Hundreds
of others are making the same mistake because surgeons are not suitably
evaluating their motives to change gender.
Immediately
after the procedure, one is in a state of euphoria because he battles it for so
long. He thinks this is wonderful and fabulous thinking that life is going
to be good and then as time goes on, there's this funny little thing that
occurs in life - the reality, he shares.
While
battling with the difficult physical transition, he also faced cruel
discrimination in his professional life, ended up for a long time unemployed and
went to over 200 interviews before getting a job, because people don't really
want a transgender person.
In
the mid-1980s, he realized that his desire to change genders came from
deep-rooted childhood trauma than a genetic disorder. But with no safe reversal
procedures at the time, it was already too late.
It
is accepted that people like Walt, who believe they were born inside the wrong
body, suffer from Gender Dysphoria.
The
condition was once deemed to be psychiatric, but is now established as a
medical condition by bodies. Recent studies suggest that it is a biological
disorder caused by hormonal imbalances before a baby is born than a mental
illness.
Walt,
however, claims that his gender confusion was caused simply by his environment
and family relationships.
Raised
in Los Angeles, Walt had a difficult but tolerable start in life with a strict
mother, a part-time policeman father - living in the shadow of a 'brainiac'
brother.
At about five years old, Heyer started to dress like a girl taught by his grandmother when he was being babysat by her, which caused him to be confused as a little boy. When his dad found out what grandma had been doing, and dressing him up like a girl, it did change everything. Now that he is aware, he treats this experience as abusive, although it appeared to be type of caring and even playful by the one who initiated such.[2]
His
daughter was extremely upset while his son said it would be easier if he were to
die, because then at least he could talk to people about what he was going
through.
His
adopted brother Fred began to sexually molest him. Mom's discipline got even
more harsh and he would learn much later in life that on one occasion, her
discipline was so tough, she thought she had almost killed him.
The
treatment he endured from his supposedly loved ones made him feel like he was
'a girl trapped in a male's body' which caused him to be secluded.
Heyer’s early struggles did not stop there, wherein as consequence his father turned to be angry and fearful of the influence of his grandmother and started to treat him son differently. His mother was young and immature, who had two boys of her own before the age of 20, and was heavy-handed with her discipline of them. His uncle considered the situation with his grandmother as a fun, and sexually molested him at a young age.
After a while, Heyer started to be conscious if he would be treated better if he actually was a girl. He tried to conceal his feelings, but the more withdrawal he did the more it creates flight of the imagination of becoming a girl.
The fantasy to be a girl had chased him by his early teenage years, adopted the female name Andrea West and started cross-dressing. He also started learning about Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS) at the age of 15. Although he struggled against his urge to be female, he says those feelings were like a radio playing in his head that he just could not switch off.
While he did not desire to be going down this trail he seemed to be on this track that he could not break off, stop or transform. But he was not a homosexual, had dates with girls, and never felt any desire to have relationships with men, so from the standpoint of his sexuality he was always heterosexual. This he thinks, too, is one of the misleading factors. Most people consider transgenders to be homosexual and, from his experience 98 to 99 percent of the people who contact him are not homosexual. It is really a gender identity issue than a sexual preference issue, he asserts.
Amidst this struggle, Heyer got hitched and had two children. He employed as an engineer temporarily and attained success.
Nevertheless, the difficulty that he faced was that he could not shut the thoughts or the feelings off. He ended up with alcohol to cope with his issues, and eventually his life came crashing down around him.
After 17 years of marriage, he broke up with his wife three months before the surgery not to put someone else 'through that difficult time'. The relationship with his ex-wife remained civil but his daughter, 15 at the time, and son, 12, were less sympathetic. He says that when a father does that, he’s betraying his children and what came to his mind later on was he saw himself as much more important than his kids, which is probably the most self-centered, narcissistic thing a person can do. It's just nonsense to place oneself over a couple of kids, who needed someone to be there for them.
He lost his job when the physical transformation into becoming a woman cropped up. He had breast implants, started taking hormones, took electrolysis to reduce the hair on his face, and had his genitals removed.
He
realised that the fantasy he had been nurturing is an escape since childhood.
As a transsexual, he took the name Laura, and lived under that identity for eight years. As Laura Jensen, he eventually landed a well-paying job employed US government at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
Nonetheless, after studying psychology at the University of California Santa Cruz while still living as a transsexual he came to the self-realisation that he made a huge error asserting that a man cannot actually alter genders, which was a delusion, he says. He also later realized that he had a dissociative disorder and multiple personality disorder as a consequence of his haunting past.
As Laura, Heyer says that he believed
in Christ but struggled to be accepted in the church. He could still recall one
church that he attended where he entered as a woman but was asked to leave by
the pastor once his identity issues were made known.
However, not all his church
experiences were bad. He found a church that welcomed him in, even with the
awareness of his struggle, telling him that their job is to love and it is God's
job to transform him.
The church
allows him to really get to the point where he asked the Lord for absolution.
He started to pray for forgiveness and realized that the critical point is
awareness that one can accept Jesus Christ. There's a point that it doesn't
become real until one walks with Christ, he says.
While on his transformation, he had a vision while praying with his psychologist. He saw Jesus picking up a baby version of himself, stared at him and said, "You will now be saved with me forever." From this encounter, he could feel the Holy Spirit moving and guiding him in his life.
Walt
says that in transsexual operation, all they do is pumping people full of
hormones, put in breast implants and declare that they have developed a female,
which is biologically impossible to make a man into a woman.'
After
eight years of living as Laura Jensen in San Francisco, he had another operation
to revert his 'birth gender', which cost him £20,000 and untold damage to his
health and relationships.
All
glory to God that after many emotional discussions, he has finally regenerated
his relationship with his children, who now call him 'their hero'. He met with
each one of them, and told them how remorseful he was that he focused on some gender
difficulties that he was having than them. The relationship took its time to
heal, but now it's fine, he stressed.
Addressing Gender Dysphoria
Gender
dysphoria is a condition where a person goes through distress brought by a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.
Biological sex
is designated at birth, depending on the surfacing of the genitals. Gender identity is the gender that an
individual 'identifies' with or feels themselves to be. Biological sex and
gender identity are similar for most people but this is not the case for
everyone. Some people may have the
anatomy of a man, but recognize themselves as a woman, while others may not
feel they are determinately either male or female.
This
disparity between sex and gender identity can lead to distressing and uncomfortable
feelings recognized as gender dysphoria, which is medical condition than a mental
illness, for which treatment is sometimes appropriate. This condition is also
sometimes known as gender identity disorder (GID), gender incongruence or
transgenderism.
Some
people with gender dysphoria have a strong and unrelenting longing to live based
on their gender identity than their biological sex. These people are sometimes
called transsexual or trans people. Some trans people have treatment to form
their physical appearance more in harmony with their gender identity.
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