Friday, March 17, 2017

Transgender Pain for Mother and Son

As we read about a mother and son in Detroit seeking to “transition” to a “father” and “daughter” – and apart from politics – what is the human story underneath?

In terms of the “transgender” question, this is just the new word for cross-dressing, an update to the old word, transvestite. But now add to it hormone manipulation ...

In ministry in Boston many years ago, I learned the reality that men (or boys) who dress as women do so in order to become their own “women,” wanting the feminine but not being able – for various reasons – to trust or know how to relate to real women. And this is overwhelmingly in the absence of a loving and present father who knows how to treat the boy’s mother.

Which brings us to the mother in this equation. Three lesbians at Harvard, with whom I was studying in the 1980s, told me that every lesbian they knew had been sexually, physically and/or emotionally abused in their youth by some man, usually a step-father, live-in boyfriend, some other older male in the immediate or extended family, or outside of it, but quite rarely the biological father himself. The same reality is found in the male homosexual world, but with different dynamics at play.

When the biological father chooses to absent himself, this is the prior, and indeed, the deepest trauma and rejection. All the sufferings of those whom he abandons find their source in what precedes and leads to his departure.

The testimony of these Harvard women is anecdotal as it is dynamic, and over the years I have discovered how it is very prevalent. These violated girls and young women cannot later trust men, and in their midst, those who seek to become “trans” are seeking to become their own “men” as a means by to protect themselves from abusive men. This is also true for heterosexual women who identify with the “GLBTQ” world, who for their own and oftentimes similar reasons, seek a sense of safety in becoming their own “men.”

Thus, here, to what extent are the divorced mother and her son complementary sufferers? What might Dad have wrought, he who, in this case, is “okay” with their “transgendering?” The “transgendered” mother now calls herself the “second father” to the “transgendered” boy who calls himself a “girl.” Ontology reversed.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

John, opinions founded on anecdotal evidence tend to confirmation bias -- as you know. We also both know that 21st century "scientific" research suffers its own forms of confirmation bias. Still, I need to dispute your fundamental understanding of the source of transgenderism being an absent male parent. The M-to-F transgender person I know best came from an extremely strong intact family. After his mother's death (when he was maybe 22), his father asked the 3 sons a couple years later for permission to marry a Christian woman whose (clergy) husband had abandoned her with 2 kids. When his father died, many years later, the stepson's Facebook memorial page was called, "I love you, you are wonderful" -- the only sentences the father had to express his love and God's love to everyone around him during the last few years of his Alzheimer's. So this is an M-to-F from a family with a strong and present father, profoundly rooted in Christian faith, who never ceased to be a provider and protector.

All of that just to say: The Deceiver doesn't need to follow any rules in confusing people about who we are. Sometimes I think our desire to identify a rule or a pattern is one of his most powerful tools to distract and divide. For what it's worth.

John Rankin said...

Thank you.

I said "overwhelmingly," and I know there are real and/or outward exceptions. And there are violations from outside the immediate family (this I have seen) that can cause confusion, where the "safety" of a "female" identity can be sought by a man. In terms of anecdotal reality, this is my starting point. I will tell you that in the thousands of homosexuals I have addressed in person, or spoken with in person including in-depth, the reality of the pain and confusion that flows from the chosen absence of the biological father is overwhelming. This testimony from Harvard, which I gave before the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut State Legislature n 2002 -- before 600 people in three hearing rooms, a gaggle of media, and at least 120 pro-homosexual activists -- brought not one challenge to what I said.

Anonymous said...

Christianpurpose blog says, "Opinions founded on anecdotal evidence tend to confirmation bias." "... '[S]cientific' research suffers its own forms of confirmation bias."

I am not sure what "confirmation bias" is, but I guess that "bias" is undesirable as an impediment to knowing truth and that "confirmation bias" is a particular form of bias that tends to reinforce / confirm itself by viewing experiences in a way that suppresses truth in order to fit facts and experiences into the mold of the bias.

Ironically, after disputing Rev. Rankin's "fundamental understanding," the next assertions are gleaned from anecdotal evidence: "The M-to-F transgender person I KNOW BEST....." What makes conclusions / opinions / biases drawn from this anecdote valid? And in what does this greater validity lie if not personal experience / anecdote?

Is it possible to fail to form opinions based upon experience? When we do form opinions, are we always "biased"? If we form opinions at all, how are we to determine whether these are biased or not?

Christianpurpose blog then says, "The Deceiver doesn't need to follow any rules in confusing people..." I cannot read that statement without a nagging question rising up in my very confused heart: Is it possible to be deceived if there are no rules?