Distractions: Alcohol, Guns, Pornography, Video Games, Gambling...

[Athanasius]

So, the only thing that changed is the HRT, administered for health issues, resulting in unwanted physiological effects - and the judgments of others in the faith community.

Your family - wife and son - is okay(?).

Well, let's say the physiological effects aren't entirely unwanted (ahem they're uh kinda quite wanted), just, not the desired ideal outcome. The mental effect of the HRT itself has been extraordinarily beneficial, especially contrasted with testosterone when I was on it. Even my wife will say that going on it - estrogen - was the right decision. It's just complicated. But it was always going to be HRT of some kind with me for other health reasons, and if we weren't dealing with this then we'd be dealing with my ever-worsening depression. At least in this case we have an actual quality of life, and I like, you know, smile from time to time. I haven't been depressed for almost a year now, and I mean that I've gone from moderate to severe depression to actually looking forward to life.

So everyone here is doing pretty well, including our son, yes. My wife and I are relationship counselling but again, we would have been anyway. And I'm not acting out of some commitment to a dubious metaphysic, and I'm not going full-bore with any kind of so-called 'transition'. It just is what it is, and it's better than the alternative.

[ProDeo]

Good to hear the quality of your life is improving. Can you explain the difference between HRT and TR (Testosterone Replacement)?

[Athanasius]

Good to hear the quality of your life is improving. Can you explain the difference between HRT and TR (Testosterone Replacement)?

TRT = Testosterone replacement therapy
ERT = Estrogen replacement therapy
HRT = Hormone replacement therapy (generally)
cross-sex HRT = TRT if you're female, or ERT if you're male. May also be called masculinising hormone therapy or feminising hormone therapy.

Mostly, people just say HRT.

[RandyPNW]

Good to hear the quality of your life is improving. Can you explain the difference between HRT and TR (Testosterone Replacement)?

TRT = Testosterone replacement therapy
ERT = Estrogen replacement therapy
HRT = Hormone replacement therapy (generally)
cross-sex HRT = TRT if you're female, or ERT if you're male. May also be called masculinising hormone therapy or feminising hormone therapy.

Mostly, people just say HRT.

Could you please explain to me what makes these treatments controversial for you? It appears parents, pastors, and Christians generally have a problem with this? At least that's what it sounds like.

I have a friend whose birth family is a friend of our family. He is definitely a male, but has a lot of feminine-type characteristics, which is not odd in itself, since lots of women have masculine characteristics, and lots of men have feminine characteristics.

But he has a wife and two almost grown girls, and suffers a lot of anxiety, which has cost him his business. I'm wondering if he has problems like yours? I'd like to be able to understand better?

[Athanasius]

Could you please explain to me what makes these treatments controversial for you? It appears parents, pastors, and Christians generally have a problem with this? At least that's what it sounds like.

Oh, Randy.

Postmenopausal women might go on HRT to address decreased estrogen levels.
Older men, or in my case, someone with (primary) hypogonadism, might go on HRT to address decreased - or near non-existent - testosterone levels.

I don't think there's anyone who takes issue with HRT within this context. There is an underlying - er, acceptable - medical condition, and so, hormone replacement is offered as a treatment.

What's not so cool is cross-sex HRT, or in my case, feminising hormone therapy. I'm on estrogen, and my hormonal balance is female-typical: higher estrogen, lower testosterone. I'm considered to be medically transitioning, or more simply, I'm trans(gender), and thus most people who encounter me consider me to be a male-to-female trans woman.

Now, I hesitate with the 'trans woman' label as I approach my own circumstance from that of a medical perspective: (1) I have to address my hypogonadism, (2) something needs to be done about my worsening depression, and (3) I experience gender dysphoria to an ever-worsening degree the older I get. The reality is that I can affirm all the orthodox Christian doctrine, and I can come up with any number of arguments or philosophical insights into why I'm not justified in thinking the things I think are self-evident about myself. I can agree until I'm blue in the face with "God made us male and female" but at the end of the day, I still need to contend with a psychological condition that has prevailed against threeish decades of attempts to overcome, or cope, or find some way to live without going on HRT and similar.

But a lot of people don't get that far. They see a dude with breasts, think of whatever the hot button trans topic in the news is, and make assumptions and associations. I'm rebelling against God. I'm deceived by Satan. I'm under demonic oppression. I've been deceived by the world. I'm following my own lusts. I'm engaged in Gnosticism. And on, and on, and on. How about, I was failing myself, my wife, my son, my family, I was becoming suicidal, and I had tried everything else I and others could think of? The HRT was the last-ditch effort. It was a hail mary.

I made the choice to start HRT while thinking that what I was doing was quite possibly sin, and could cost me everything, including eternally. That's some perspective; it wasn't a decision made lightly. I tortured myself with that decision for almost three years. I've struggled with dysphoria, or something like it, for as long as I can remember.

So I'm now a happy aesthetic mess with serious, unresolved theological questions. What do the people around me see that you don't?

- 'Female skin'? Yep.
- Breasts? Oh, yeah. Yep, definitely.
- A female-typical body shape, fat redistribution, etc.? Yep.
- Did I get a bit shorter? Yep.
- Pelvic tilt? Yep.
- Did my carrying angle change? Yep.

And so on. So, keep this in mind. This big theological/philosophical brain of mine is within a body that is no longer ecclesiastically acceptable. Mine is a difficult question. I don't expect the majority of people I meet to understand, and I don't expect them to. I do expect them to exemplify the life of Christ and understand that I need Jesus, and they do too. I'm forced to confront myself, socially. I'm truly introverted, and I find that extraordinarily uncomfortable. The capital-C Church that I've been exposed to doesn't know how to handle me. I'm put the side, or given the trite advice to align my head with my body or else I'm in sin or something. I grew up thinking that I had a choice between salvation and misery, or happiness and damnation. The life of faith is to me deeply existential.

I have a friend whose birth family is a friend of our family. He is definitely a male, but has a lot of feminine-type characteristics, which is not odd in itself, since lots of women have masculine characteristics, and lots of men have feminine characteristics.

But he has a wife and two almost grown girls, and suffers a lot of anxiety, which has cost him his business. I'm wondering if he has problems like yours? I'd like to be able to understand better?

If he's dysphoric and that's causing anxiety then he will need to be open about it. That's no easy thing. But he could just be an anxious mess, and in either case, seeing a counsellor/psychologist/therapist would be a good idea.

As for myself, the experience itself is difficult to convey. It's like an inner-knowing at the level of being itself that I ought to have been female. It's the repetition of the thought that "I should have been like her", or "I'm not meant to be like him". It lay at the foundation of all the other psychological afflictions I experienced: depression and anxiety prime among them.

You'd have to really put your imagination to use, and imagine what it would be like if you woke up female tomorrow, knowing that you're actually male, and the profound implications that would have on not only your experience of the world but the world's experience of you.

[IMINXTC]

Why do so many fail to grasp the significance and distinction of what is clearly, obviously, a physiological, medical issue?

[RandyPNW]

Why do so many fail to grasp the significance and distinction of what is clearly, obviously, a physiological, medical issue?

I agree it's physiological, but there are theological overtones, as the brother said. I suppose as long as he doesn't wear a dress, and become a homosexual, he may indeed look physically like a she. As I said, I've known quite a few of these, and many today think they were born to be homosexuals because of this.

I don't. I think that we're saddled with what we're saddled with. It's part of the Fall, and we all suffer, physiologically, from the Fall in one way or another.

I wouldn't know why the depression, or why the thought that he is failing his family? Often, sacrifices have to be made in life. The loss of sexuality can be emotionally upsetting, but life is greater than sexuality. If the partner doesn't like it, have to let them go.

My stepson had an accident that did this to him. He's now divorced, and yes--that was the reason in part. The spirituality in the marriage was not great enough. Now my stepson wanders almost homeless through the UK.

It's a trial A. is faced with. It's respectable to bear up under trial, and not to lose faith. We can suffer things our whole lives, because it is God's will, and God will reward us for our endurance.

If I looked like a girl cause God made me that way, I wouldn't feel in the least guilty. I'd just act like its a medical condition, and not give any care to those who wish to argue it.

[RandyPNW]

Could you please explain to me what makes these treatments controversial for you? It appears parents, pastors, and Christians generally have a problem with this? At least that's what it sounds like.

Oh, Randy.

Postmenopausal women might go on HRT to address decreased estrogen levels.
Older men, or in my case, someone with (primary) hypogonadism, might go on HRT to address decreased - or near non-existent - testosterone levels.

I don't think there's anyone who takes issue with HRT within this context. There is an underlying - er, acceptable - medical condition, and so, hormone replacement is offered as a treatment.

What's not so cool is cross-sex HRT, or in my case, feminising hormone therapy. I'm on estrogen, and my hormonal balance is female-typical: higher estrogen, lower testosterone. I'm considered to be medically transitioning, or more simply, I'm trans(gender), and thus most people who encounter me consider me to be a male-to-female trans woman.

Now, I hesitate with the 'trans woman' label as I approach my own circumstance from that of a medical perspective: (1) I have to address my hypogonadism, (2) something needs to be done about my worsening depression, and (3) I experience gender dysphoria to an ever-worsening degree the older I get. The reality is that I can affirm all the orthodox Christian doctrine, and I can come up with any number of arguments or philosophical insights into why I'm not justified in thinking the things I think are self-evident about myself. I can agree until I'm blue in the face with "God made us male and female" but at the end of the day, I still need to contend with a psychological condition that has prevailed against threeish decades of attempts to overcome, or cope, or find some way to live without going on HRT and similar.

But a lot of people don't get that far. They see a dude with breasts, think of whatever the hot button trans topic in the news is, and make assumptions and associations. I'm rebelling against God. I'm deceived by Satan. I'm under demonic oppression. I've been deceived by the world. I'm following my own lusts. I'm engaged in Gnosticism. And on, and on, and on. How about, I was failing myself, my wife, my son, my family, I was becoming suicidal, and I had tried everything else I and others could think of? The HRT was the last-ditch effort. It was a hail mary.

I made the choice to start HRT while thinking that what I was doing was quite possibly sin, and could cost me everything, including eternally. That's some perspective; it wasn't a decision made lightly. I tortured myself with that decision for almost three years. I've struggled with dysphoria, or something like it, for as long as I can remember.

So I'm now a happy aesthetic mess with serious, unresolved theological questions. What do the people around me see that you don't?

- 'Female skin'? Yep.
- Breasts? Oh, yeah. Yep, definitely.
- A female-typical body shape, fat redistribution, etc.? Yep.
- Did I get a bit shorter? Yep.
- Pelvic tilt? Yep.
- Did my carrying angle change? Yep.

And so on. So, keep this in mind. This big theological/philosophical brain of mine is within a body that is no longer ecclesiastically acceptable. Mine is a difficult question. I don't expect the majority of people I meet to understand, and I don't expect them to. I do expect them to exemplify the life of Christ and understand that I need Jesus, and they do too. I'm forced to confront myself, socially. I'm truly introverted, and I find that extraordinarily uncomfortable. The capital-C Church that I've been exposed to doesn't know how to handle me. I'm put the side, or given the trite advice to align my head with my body or else I'm in sin or something. I grew up thinking that I had a choice between salvation and misery, or happiness and damnation. The life of faith is to me deeply existential.

I have a friend whose birth family is a friend of our family. He is definitely a male, but has a lot of feminine-type characteristics, which is not odd in itself, since lots of women have masculine characteristics, and lots of men have feminine characteristics.

But he has a wife and two almost grown girls, and suffers a lot of anxiety, which has cost him his business. I'm wondering if he has problems like yours? I'd like to be able to understand better?

If he's dysphoric and that's causing anxiety then he will need to be open about it. That's no easy thing. But he could just be an anxious mess, and in either case, seeing a counsellor/psychologist/therapist would be a good idea.

As for myself, the experience itself is difficult to convey. It's like an inner-knowing at the level of being itself that I ought to have been female. It's the repetition of the thought that "I should have been like her", or "I'm not meant to be like him". It lay at the foundation of all the other psychological afflictions I experienced: depression and anxiety prime among them.

You'd have to really put your imagination to use, and imagine what it would be like if you woke up female tomorrow, knowing that you're actually male, and the profound implications that would have on not only your experience of the world but the world's experience of you.

Thanks for your frankness and honesty. In a world where there is very little of this, your approach is refreshing.

That doesn't mean I have any answers for you. I think we've all been challenged by the gender confusion in our own generation.

I think many of us have had questions about possible homosexual inclinations in us. I just write it off to the Fall. We have, as the Jews say, an evil inclination. We simply have to say "No" to it.

Your trial is harder in this area than most. I don't know if you've had homosexual fantasies, but in your condition it seems likely.

If so, I wouldn't get confused. I'm rather conservative, but also open-minded. Theologically, you're either a guy or a girl. You can still be a morphodite. I think you should stick with who the doctor said you were at birth, and just live with the opposite sex tendencies.

Women become mechanics, and men become plane stewards. Some guys like flowers, and some women want to fight in the military. It doesn't matter, except that in the Law men were told not to wear women's clothing to send the homosexual signal to others. What matters is the message you're sending.

As I said, a close friend is dealing with this kind of thing, but I haven't been able to help him. Much of his birth family is Christian. But he seems less interested in religion, though a very respectable guy. I don't think he'll improve until he finds more spiritual peace in his life. I do think he has Christian convictions though, and I wouldn't judge him as a bad person or going to Hell.

For you, Get the Hell question out of your mind. You're not going to Hell. But you do want to enter the Kingdom of God feeling like you won the war. We're all in this battle together, and I don't see anybody here throwing you under the bus.

[IMINXTC]

I'm thinking wisdom and caution might demand a less public
airing and display of these issues.

Ideally, my confession is to that of father and husband, thus a guy, regardless of complications or implications, that are neither understood or properly interpreted by the majority, however visible.

If my testimony matches my day-to-day actions, in spite of personal struggles, then it's time for folks to move on.

If my need is to be seen as something other than that, based upon unconventional physiological leanings, which must not  supersede my identities as father, husband, guy, regardless of personal difficulties, then the role of Godly conscience is obscured.

This understanding between husband and wife is critical.

Beyond these considerations, it's nobody's biz-wax.

[Athanasius]

I agree it's physiological, but there are theological overtones, as the brother said. I suppose as long as he doesn't wear a dress, and become a homosexual, he may indeed look physically like a she. As I said, I've known quite a few of these, and many today think they were born to be homosexuals because of this.

If what we're - and I mean, I'm - dealing with is indeed a psychological malady, a disordering of my mental state, and so on, then simple moral pronouncements like "you can wear these clothes, but not these clothes" aren't going to cut it. Dresses are for whatever reason the go-to example, and I don't own any dresses, but even if I did, it's not as if we have in view someone who is acting freely, as it were. There's an underlying compulsion, if you will, that demands satisfaction. The moral/theological complications introduced by the underlying medical/psychological condition aren't trivial.

As it is, the dress example is also complicated by particular social values for a given social milieu. And like, do we forbid dresses but not bras? So, I understand the sentiment behind the "I suppose as long as..." but I think ultimately the clean distinction that's being sought isn't going to be possible. What matters here isn't the outward appearance, but inwardness and the heart and intentions of the individual before God. Notice I said appearance and not act, or behaviour.

I wouldn't know why the depression, or why the thought that he is failing his family?

Those things are a result of decades of self-denial, and by that I mean actual denial of my self. Accompanying this has been depersonalisation, disassociation, anxiety, depression, destructive introspection and abstraction of my personality, an inability to feel as if I'm genuinely connecting with others because "if they knew the real me", and so on. Severe depression alone qualifies as "failing ones family" I should think, insofar as to the ways that depression works itself out day-to-day, i.e., being miserable, not wanting to do anything, failing to live up to, say, the Pauline standards of husband and father.

You have to keep in mind that I'm struggling at the level of being, or the foundation of self, rather than some specific outworking of who I find myself to be. I don't experience a surety of self that others do; or at least, others don't experience the disruption of self-experience that I do. My entire epistemic position is wrapped up in a kind of doubt that Descartes could have only dreamed of. My experience of myself in relation to the world and vice-versa is essentially discordant. The incongruity is the stuff of Lovecraftian horror made real.

Often, sacrifices have to be made in life. The loss of sexuality can be emotionally upsetting, but life is greater than sexuality. If the partner doesn't like it, have to let them go.

While this entails questions of self-worth, "did God make me this way?", etc., the shortcoming of the comparison pertains to the core stability of self-identity. My identity isn't stable in that same way.

My stepson had an accident that did this to him. He's now divorced, and yes--that was the reason in part. The spirituality in the marriage was not great enough. Now my stepson wanders almost homeless through the UK.

If he's ever on the east coast of Scotland.

If I looked like a girl cause God made me that way, I wouldn't feel in the least guilty. I'd just act like its a medical condition, and not give any care to those who wish to argue it.

That's easy to say, but once you introduce a social dynamic, and especially a church context, it becomes difficult very quickly. The minute you want to engage with other Christians, it becomes difficult because of the presuppositions they bring to the conversation. One might find themselves engaged in a never-ending self-defence.

[Athanasius]

I'm thinking wisdom and caution might demand a less public
airing and display of these issues.

Yeah maybe.

[Athanasius]

Thanks for your frankness and honesty. In a world where there is very little of this, your approach is refreshing.

That doesn't mean I have any answers for you. I think we've all been challenged by the gender confusion in our own generation.

I think many of us have had questions about possible homosexual inclinations in us. I just write it off to the Fall. We have, as the Jews say, an evil inclination. We simply have to say "No" to it.

Your trial is harder in this area than most. I don't know if you've had homosexual fantasies, but in your condition it seems likely.

As a bit of an aside, I don't think there is a clean opposite-sex/same-sex attraction dichotomy that is often assumed. I think a person can be primarily attracted to X or Y but the possibility of acting in a different direction is never out of the question. Holding to strictly defined heterosexual and homosexual categories is probably an unhelpful way to create divisions among people, and indeed there are such divisions today. Of course, my perspective has been complicated.

I once did a podcast - as far as I know, unreleased - with a theologian who I had been emailing with. We were talking somewhat in-depth about the theological/philosophical considerations of dysphoria, particularly around the epistemological questions, and then also somewhat around the ontology or metaphysics generally. When the podcast started the first question I was asked was about my sexual orientation. Along with the thought of dresses, this is another thing people tend to go to first. It's too bad we didn't continue our theological/philosophical conversation.

The only thing I would say is that it's not helpful to assume or imagine X from Y given W.

If so, I wouldn't get confused. I'm rather conservative, but also open-minded. Theologically, you're either a guy or a girl. You can still be a morphodite. I think you should stick with who the doctor said you were at birth, and just live with the opposite sex tendencies.

I think the biological markers are significant, but therein lies the metaphysics.

For you, Get the Hell question out of your mind. You're not going to Hell. But you do want to enter the Kingdom of God feeling like you won the war. We're all in this battle together, and I don't see anybody here throwing you under the bus.

No, not yet anyway, but as I said, this place isn't my real life. Here I can write out what I'm thinking, and that opportunity isn't always present in the moment of a 'conversation'.

[ProDeo]

I wouldn't know why the depression, or why the thought that he is failing his family?

Those things are a result of decades of self-denial, and by that I mean actual denial of my self. Accompanying this has been depersonalisation, disassociation, anxiety, depression, destructive introspection and abstraction of my personality, an inability to feel as if I'm genuinely connecting with others because "if they knew the real me", and so on. Severe depression alone qualifies as "failing ones family" I should think, insofar as to the ways that depression works itself out day-to-day, i.e., being miserable, not wanting to do anything, failing to live up to, say, the Pauline standards of husband and father.

You have to keep in mind that I'm struggling at the level of being, or the foundation of self, rather than some specific outworking of who I find myself to be. I don't experience a surety of self that others do; or at least, others don't experience the disruption of self-experience that I do. My entire epistemic position is wrapped up in a kind of doubt that Descartes could have only dreamed of. My experience of myself in relation to the world and vice-versa is essentially discordant. The incongruity is the stuff of Lovecraftian horror made real.

Decades of self-denial (as you put it), wow, this is so essential. What's stopping you to turn that page? Isn't the answer not self-acceptance and stop fighting who you are? I know this is very simplistic put, apologies in advance if I am wrong.

[Athanasius]

Decades of self-denial (as you put it), wow, this is so essential. What's stopping you to turn that page? Isn't the answer not self-acceptance and stop fighting who you are? I know this is very simplistic put, apologies in advance if I am wrong.

Three things:

1) The possibility of sin.
2) The epistemic difficulty such that, as far as I can tell, I'm neither justified nor warranted in acting on my self-beliefs.
3) The loss of the relationships I hold most dear

That 2) can be a bit interesting because I think there's a difference between (a) starting HRT out of the belief that I actually ought to have been a woman, and so I'm going to pursue that and (b) starting HRT because I was becoming suicidal as a consequence of the dysphoria (primarily). That is to say that there is dysphoria as something to be experienced, but it is itself the consequence of tension between who I know myself to be and who I find myself to actually be. It's that "who I know myself to be" that is unjustifiable as far as I can tell.

This is to say that when I talk about self-denial I don't mean that I've tried to convince myself that I'm not actually dysphoric, or that I don't actually think the things I think about myself, and so on. I've always known that, and I actually like myself (so I must be insane). The question for me has always been: knowing who and how I am, how do I best live my life? When my self is saying do this thing!, or this is actually who you are you moron, it's to that that I've been saying no. And of course, I would, because that thing and that knowledge (let's call it) has always been fundamentally sinful according to the Christians I grew up around. And I'm not sure that they were wrong.

So had I engaged in self-acceptance when I was younger, I would have been shipped off to the pastor, told all about sin, how God made gender, how boys are boys and girls are girls, and on, and on, and on. Who knows, maybe that would have helped, but I doubt it.

Of course, I'm now not fighting with myself, and the question of sin looms over my head.

[ProDeo]

Decades of self-denial (as you put it), wow, this is so essential. What's stopping you to turn that page? Isn't the answer not self-acceptance and stop fighting who you are? I know this is very simplistic put, apologies in advance if I am wrong.

Three things:

1) The possibility of sin.
2) The epistemic difficulty such that, as far as I can tell, I'm neither justified nor warranted in acting on my self-beliefs.
3) The loss of the relationships I hold most dear

That 2) can be a bit interesting because I think there's a difference between (a) starting HRT out of the belief that I actually ought to have been a woman, and so I'm going to pursue that and (b) starting HRT because I was becoming suicidal as a consequence of the dysphoria (primarily). That is to say that there is dysphoria as something to be experienced, but it is itself the consequence of tension between who I know myself to be and who I find myself to actually be. It's that "who I know myself to be" that is unjustifiable as far as I can tell.

This is to say that when I talk about self-denial I don't mean that I've tried to convince myself that I'm not actually dysphoric, or that I don't actually think the things I think about myself, and so on. I've always known that, and I actually like myself (so I must be insane). The question for me has always been: knowing who and how I am, how do I best live my life? When my self is saying do this thing!, or this is actually who you are you moron, it's to that that I've been saying no. And of course, I would, because that thing and that knowledge (let's call it) has always been fundamentally sinful according to the Christians I grew up around. And I'm not sure that they were wrong.

I can not even imagine what gender dysphoria means in practice, not to know what you are, man, female or something in between, the latter not mentioned in Scripture, for millennia trampled, it's only since a year of 10 (or so) it has the attention of medical science and the media.

I am a 100% heterosexual man, when I see 2 men kissing on TV my stomach is turning, when 2 women are kissing I (oddly) suddenly have less problems (the hypocrite I am) and it takes a bit longer to zap. What I am saying is that gender (whether male or female) is so important and essential for a human being and that the slightest doubt on who and what you are is a receipt for trouble. Freud was right, man or female both are sexual beings, it's an identity thing. Many people don't realize it, the few times I said it (you are a sexual being) they look shocked with a look on their face: never mind, he was always a bit strange.

Regarding HRT, as you perhaps remember I am getting every 3 months a hormone injection which is giving me (so far 7) extra years on the planet. It's pure physical and I don't have any problem with it, despite (as I am told) have become a bit more social, which my case can't harm  Of course your HRT is quite different but survival is also inborn and not sinful by definition. In your case I would have done the same.

So had I engaged in self-acceptance when I was younger, I would have been shipped off to the pastor, told all about sin, how God made gender, how boys are boys and girls are girls, and on, and on, and on. Who knows, maybe that would have helped, but I doubt it.

I doubt that too, I ran into my own limitations at the age of 38, unable to change myself, no matter how hard I prayed, no matter how many people prayed for me, no matter how hard I tried. I am at relative peace with it now, I wish it were different but I know the person I wanted to be is not in my reach.

Of course, I'm now not fighting with myself, and the question of sin looms over my head.

Would you say if you were not a Christian your life would be better? Better in the sense that as a non Christian sin would not be an issue.