Happy Thanksgiving

Tags

childhood memories of Thanksgiving, Holidays, Josh Groban, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving dinner

I won’t be posting again until after Thanksgiving.  Observance of the holiday will take me offline until the end of the week.

My blog adventure has just begun, leading only God knows where.  But for those of you who have read, commented, liked or subscribed, I thank you for being here.

Thanksgiving brings back memories of childhood.  The early years, when we still lived in Queens, brought to life the lyrics “over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go.”  The river was the Hudson, the bridge was the Tappan Zee and the west side of the Hudson had far more woods than today, although the Thruway through Harriman State Park is still a woodland expanse that is home to a section of the Appalachian Trail.

The pies were what I remember most of those early Thanksgivings outside of Walden (the village in New York, not the pond made famous by Thoreau).  I never tried the mincemeat pie, however.  It sounded weird to me at that age. Still does to some extent.  Of course, there were also the old people smells: liniment, moth balls and a smell that I can only describe as “old lady scent” from the 1950’s.

When my grandmother got older and was no longer able to manage a big dinner (or perhaps my mom was angry with her father-in-law, a fairly common occurrence), we were on the other side of that river and we ate Thanksgiving dinner at a restaurant that dated back to the Revolutionary War.  As a family on a budget, we didn’t eat at a restaurant very often.  So Thanksgiving provided some childhood lessons in table manners and how one behaves properly in a restaurant.  It may not be politically correct now, but mom had a way of making sure my brother and I behaved, and she didn’t need to use it too often.  And my brother, five years older and having been through this before, gave me a good lead to follow.

I managed to follow that lead, most of the time.  But in the early 1960’s restaurants did not provide kid-friendly options the way they do now.  I think the biggest disagreement was over the vegetables.  I happen to love onions, but why put the pearl onions in cream sauce and ruin them?

Perhaps coinciding with the onset of college expenses for my brother and my private school tuition (the balance after a partial scholarship – my mom was stay at home and my dad’s wages put is somewhere in lower middle class), we started having Thanksgiving at home.  That brought a revelation about turkeys.

Previously, the meat was already sliced and on my plate by the time I received it. At my grandparents’ house, I was too young to be given a choice, and that is the way it was served at the restaurant.  But now, I had a whole, delicious looking turkey in front of me.  What part did I want?

I was familiar with chicken.  Mom often made a whole roast chicken for her family of four.  My parents had staked out their claims years ago.  When it came to meat, they were the Sprats.  My dad, who disliked fat, wanted the breast meat.  Mom preferred the wings.  My brother found the thighs to his liking (now my favorite part also).  That left me with the drumsticks, similar to the thigh but more in line with a smaller child’s appetite.

So a turkey drumstick is what I asked for.  It was huge compared to its chicken counterpart.  I forget whether I picked it up or cut into it, but … where the heck did these quills come from???!!!

Don’t get me wrong.  I eat a lot of turkey during the year in the form of sandwich meat.  But as far as I am concerned, a turkey is merely a delivery device for stuffing.  At a church I used to attend, we would have a Thanksgiving dinner a few Sundays before the actual event.  They had a choice of ham or turkey.  I generally took the ham, and then added stuffing and the gravy for the turkey over the stuffing.

When I got older still, I began to be my mom’s assistant in the kitchen for Thanksgiving.  My dad and my brother were useless in the kitchen.  When I lived with my brother for a few months shortly after my college days, I did all the cooking so I didn’t starve or have to live on food from a can or frozen dinners.  Earlier, when I was a freshman in college, my mom had to be hospitalized.  I came home on break in the middle of autumn and saw her: frail and huddled over the stove. She told me that she wished I had been home. The food might not have been fancy but it would have been edible.

They tried to make pot roast one evening before I came home from college. Her assessment was that it was only good to be used for wallpaper paste. Making the pan gravy was one of my jobs for Thanksgiving.  I pretty much figured out how to save gravy if it starts to become lumpy: turn down the heat, add enough cold water and let it cook down again.

I have a college degree and a few honors over the years, but one of my proudest accolades was when my mom told me she would rather work with me in the kitchen than anyone else.  I could look at my mom and know what she was thinking even if she wasn’t saying a word.  (With my dad, I never had a clue.)  And I quickly learned her moves: when she needed to be handed a utensil, when she was headed to the table or refrigerator or stove.  When she was on the move, I was rarely in her path.  And I picked up on the way she liked things done when it came to stirring, slicing, grating, etc.  We made a great team for many a holiday dinner, group picnics that we hosted or those wonderful Christmas cookies that filled the dining room table.

Oh, to have those chocolate chips, oatmeal raisin cookies, spritz cookies, Rice Krispy treats and rum balls again!  Of course, that makes me think of having mom back again, younger and in good health.  But that also makes me wonder how she would have reacted to the news of my transition.  Would she have accepted or even embraced that she had a son and daughter, not two sons? That, however, is a topic for a different time, if ever.  I will never know.

Back to the present.  I will be spending Thanksgiving with a dear friend who I have known since sixth grade.  Of all the people I came out to, she was the only who told me that she had always suspected something.  It makes sense. When we became friends, the walls I was building around me were still a work in progress.

Last year when I gave her the news, she told me that my hands were a big clue. She added that I didn’t act feminine, but that the way I moved my hands was very delicate.  She also told me that she always sensed a conflict in me. (Others did, too, but didn’t know what to relate it to.)

I am waiting to find out if she has purchased a duck, goose or capon for Thanksgiving dinner.  She knows that turkey is at the bottom of the list.

As usual, I have gone on longer than I expected.  But it kept me busy while printing out information for my tax clients.

Here’s my Thanksgiving gift to those of you who stopped by and read all the way to the end.  It is a link to a wonderful song by Josh Groban (be still my heart – if only I was thirty years younger!), very appropriate for this time of year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoygmylt2iM

Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. – Philippians 4:6

God bless,

Lois

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Do you need a vagina to be a woman?

Tags

Bible, CAUV, Christian, congenital absence of the uterus and vagina, Intersex Society of North America, Jacqui Beck, Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome, Müllerian agenesis, MRKH, MTF, Mullerian aplasia, Mullerian dysgenesis, Trans woman, Transsexual

He took a hundred pounds of clay And then He said “Hey, listen.” “I’m gonna fix this-a world today” “Because I know what’s missin’ ” Then He rolled his big sleeves up And a brand-new world began He created a woman and-a lots of lovin’ for a man Whoa-oh-oh, yes he did                                                   –      Gene McDaniels – A Hundred Pounds Of Clay

Ladies, according to the creation story sung by Gene McDaniels in 1961, God is responsible for the first 100 pounds.  The rest is on us!

Of course, we want to be careful when we take our theology from a popular song, a hymn, a sermon or a written article.  That’s why I do my best to back any significant point with Scripture.

In the actual Scripture account in Genesis 2, it was Adam who was created from the dust of the ground, not Eve.  God formed Eve from the rib of Adam, a marvelous symmetry whereby the first woman came from the body of man and all subsequent men came from the body of woman.

But do we find a detailed physical description of a woman anywhere in the Bible?  The answer is no.  The only verse I can find on the subject is 1Peter 3:7 in which the wife (as representative of women) is described as the weaker vessel (female athletes notwithstanding).  After a little over a year on hormones (and a little too much time away from the gym), I can attest to that.  Not long ago, I could lift a case of ten reams of copy paper with some effort.  Not so the other day when I had a new case delivered.  I had to drag it in from where the UPS driver left it at my door.

Indirectly we know that a woman is likely to have a menstrual cycle.  But nowhere does it say that all women have this, which of course they don’t, nor do they have it at every season of their life.  Part of the miracle of the birth of Isaac to Sarah is that she conceived after “it ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women” because of her old age.  (Genesis 18:11)

Elsewhere in Scripture, the body is described as a temple.  (1Corinthians 3:16)  One might say that the Bible is not meant to be an Anatomy textbook.  But it is also not meant to be an Architectural textbook, and yet we have elaborate descriptions of the building of Solomon’s temple (chapters 5 & 6 of 1Kings) and even more details on the building of the tabernacle in the wilderness.  Even allowing for the modesty with which the writers of those times described certain parts of the human body, they found a way to get their point across.

Some might make the point that the Bible does not need to go into a detailed physical description of a woman because “everyone” knows the physical differences between a man and a woman.  But the point of the talk by Alice Dreger and the entire reason for the existence of the Intersex Society of North America is that what “everyone” knows is not always the case.  Some people are born with the attributes of both or missing some of the attributes of both.

As an MTF transsexual, I had been focusing on those conditions in which female traits appear in a person who appears to be male.  But less than two weeks ago, I came across the story of Jacqui Beck, an attractive British teenager who was assigned the female gender at birth and looks every bit the part.  According to the National Institute of Health article describing Jacqui’s condition, women who suffer from it have the normal female XX chromosomal pattern.  As I indicated in my recent post where I described the links I placed on my blog site, I praise God for His timing in revealing these things to me about which I had been unaware.

Jacqui Beck suffers from what is commonly known as Mayer-Rokitansky-Küster-Hauser syndrome.  Since that is a mouthful, hereafter I will refer to it as MRKH.  It is also known as CAUV (congenital absence of the uterus and vagina), GRES (genital renal ear syndrome), Mullerian aplasia or Mullerian dysgenesis.

Women with this condition are born with either underdeveloped (i.e., non-functioning) or absent vagina, cervix, Fallopian tubes and uterus.  (However, ovaries are usually present.)  It is generally discovered when a woman tries to have intercourse for the first time and is unable to do so, or when an inquiry is made as to why she has not experienced her first period by an age in which it is the norm to have begun menses.  The external appearance of the genital region appears to be normal and provides no clue as to the internal abnormality that is present.

Because uterine transplants have been unsuccessful thus far, an MRKH woman cannot bear children, even after corrective surgery allows her to have intercourse.  MRKH women can only have children through surrogacy, using eggs harvested from their ovaries.

Recently, I had taken part in a conversation about the progress being made in being able to grow new body parts from a small sample of cells from one’s own body.  The general consensus is that being able to grow a uterus inside of a post-op MTF transsexual would be low priority on the scale of things.  But now we can see that there is another group of people who would benefit from the same advance in medical technology, and this group would receive scant backlash for receiving such a procedure.

In fact, this is just one way that those of us who are MTF transsexuals, especially those who are post-op or who desire to have SRS, share a special sisterhood with MRKH women.  First of all, both of us have a normal outer appearance of the genital region (for us after surgery).  Second, both of us need similar corrective surgery.  I am curious as to the history of such surgery.

Who was this surgery performed on first?  I suspect that it may have been performed on transsexuals first and that MRKH women owe us a debt of gratitude.  After all, the surgery on us would be easier, as we can supply penile skin with which to form the vaginal cavity.  But information about the timeline is conjecture on my part.

Another piece of information mentioned in the article on Jacqui Beck, and confirmed by the NIH article, is that within the universe of sexual abnormalities, MRKH is not all that rare.  The estimate is that it occurs in 1 out of every 4500 newborn girls.  Let’s see if we can make that statistic easier to picture.

Most people are familiar with New York City, my birthplace.  A conservative estimate of the population is 8.3 million people.  Statistically, it could be expected that about 900 women in New York City have MRKH.  (This is where it is handy to have a blogger who can do math!  About 50% of the population is female or approximately 4.15 million females.  4.15×10⁶ divided by 4.5×10³ is equals 922 or conservatively rounded to 900.  Okay, I’m showing off!  Forgive me.)

Nine hundred women would nearly fill a decent-sized auditorium.  My Chemistry 101 lectures at Cornell took place in an auditorium that seated about a thousand people.  Alice Tully Hall and the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center in New York City seat an audience of just under 1100.

So my MTF sisters, the next time someone challenges you, telling you that you can’t be a woman because you weren’t born with a vagina, you now have an answer.  You can tell them, “So do about 900 hundred other women in New York City born with an XX chromosome, and one out of every 4500 women around the world.”

For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. – Proverbs 2:6

TDOR Update

Tags

Murder, TDOR, Transgender, Transgender Day of Remembrance

I know that I promised a different subject for my next post, but I just came back from a TDOR service and I am in no mood to write about anything else.

Less than two weeks ago when I went to the official TDOR website to research my post, I counted 44 names.  But I also mentioned that many murders are not reported at all and that many new names for the previous year were recently discovered.

Yet even I was shocked at the thickness of the program that was handed to me. About 250 incidents of murder were posted, and some of them were reports of multiple murders associated with that incident.  There was one incident where 8 transgender women were murdered and another with 4 who were murdered.

Another thing that I was remiss in failing to mention previously: so many of the victims are nameless.  About one third of the victims are unidentified.  Even allowing for the fact that there may have been legitimate reasons to withhold names in some cases, I suspect that in many cases the authorities in that part of the world just don’t care.  Not only are we viewed as second and third class citizens, the same attitude also means that solving the murder and finding the murderer is not important.

I can only hope that the increased number is due to more diligent reporting and fact gathering rather than an increase in violence against our community.  In the end, it matters little to the victim and the people who cared about that person. What matters most to them (and should matter to all people) is that the life of a human being has been cut short by hatred and ignorance.

Last year I managed to keep my composure somehow.  This year the sheer magnitude of the numbers brought weeping to my eyes.  I don’t know how I could have borne it had the causes of death been read.  But with that many incidents there was simply no time to read more than name and location.

There was one personal bright spot for me.  Attending with me was a dear, supportive Christian friend.  She is the last person I could conceive of doing harm to someone else.  But now she has a little bit more of the facts.  And now she has a little more information that might influence another person who is unsure of his or her opinion about our community.  All we can try to do is reach people one at a time.  Gandhi and Martin Luther King changed the world with non-violent protest.  I pray to God that we can, too.

yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service. – John 16:2b

LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph? – Psalm 94:3

Links page added – Intersex and Transsexual related

Tags

Bible, birth defect, birth defects, Christian, God, inerrancy of Scripture, inerrant Bible, Intersex, science, Transsexual

WordPress has a Links widget that can be used to add links to the menu bar or a footer.  I decided that I wanted something with more flexibility.  So I have created a Links page instead, with my home page as the parent page.

In the future, I may add more links (as I come across interesting items) or different categories of links.  For now, I am focusing on the idea that transsexualism is a birth defect.

In my previous three posts, we looked at what the Bible says about the formation of a baby in the womb, what part God plays in that and also that Satan plays a limited part in corrupting what was originally designed by God (in His image) as a perfect body template.

Hopefully, it was understood from my previous posts that it cannot be the sins of the unborn baby that cause it to be born with imperfections.  At this point, let me clarify by adding that also it is not particularly the sins of the parents. “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” (Romans 3:23). God isn’t singling out some parents because they are sinners and sparing others because they are righteous.  Rather it is because Satan has a foothold in the world and a limited ability to cause trouble in the world.  But God still has ultimate authority, and whatever birth defects He allows, He allows for His ultimate purposes and perfect plan.

I believe that there is a place for faith in God and a place for scientific facts and evidence.  Scientific theory, hypothesis and conjecture will come and go. The field of nutrition is a great example.  I would have driven myself crazy long ago if I bounced back and forth with the prevailing opinions about eggs, wine, red meat, carbs, protein, coffee and so on.  Furthermore, theories, hypotheses and conjectures may be the majority opinion, but they are far less likely to be universally accepted in the scientific community than proven fact.

So if the Bible appears to conflict with a scientific theory, hypothesis or conjecture currently held by a majority of scientists, I do not rush or even crawl to change my understanding of the Bible.  But trusting in both an inerrant Bible and proven scientific fact, if they appear to be in conflict, I know that it must be man’s prevailing interpretation of Scripture that must be wrong, not the Bible itself.

For example, an area that put scientists in conflict with the Church (and to be honest, some earlier scientists) many centuries ago was in the area of the nature of our planet.  Any Bible verses that appeared to make the earth the center of the universe have to now be interpreted spiritually instead of physically.  And those who believed that the earth is flat ignored Isaiah 40:22 where it talks about “the circle of the earth.”

Microscopes, MRI’s, autopsy studies, microbiology, bio-engineering, genetic research, DNA research, population increase and advances in communication to share information have all led to a far greater understanding of the human body than could have been conceived of when Christine Jorgensen’s story first became public, let alone in the days the King James Bible was translated or in Biblical times. This does not mean that the Bible is incorrect.  It means that there are times when man’s interpretation has to be reexamined in the light of new evidence.

For someone like me who is a very spiritually-minded Christian, I have to attribute the hand of God as far when information came to my attention in answer to certain things I was told.

The first two instances involve the counseling I was receiving (actually more like open discussions) from my pastor.  He is a wonderful, loving, compassionate Christian with whom I still fellowship until this day.  When I first came out to him and his wife using the video provided for that purpose by Deep Stealth Productions, he admitted to me that this was something he had never examined from a theological perspective and needed to discreetly consult with someone else. That eventually led to me talking with someone who was affiliated with a church in Greenwich Village, but I later found out was also connected to Exodus International.

After one conversation with this man, I knew there was no point in any further discussion with him.  It was clear that we could not agree on basic terms.  He still clung to the vastly outdated notion that sexuality and gender are not different. (But to be fair. as recently as DSM-IV, transsexualism was still considered a subset of male homosexuality, as pointed out by a cisgender friend taking psychology courses.)

Lo and behold, a few months later, Exodus International made a totally unexpected announcement that reparitive therapy does not work and that every person who reported success eventually admitted that the feelings and desires did not go away.  I immediately recognized that if it doesn’t work for homosexuals, it certainly will not work fro transsexuals.

(As an aside, this person from Exodus told me of an ex-trans person that he was recommending I talk to.  However, I was told it might be a while because this person was away on a trip.  I would have been willing to talk to him.  But somehow, he never materialized.  Did he become ex-ex-trans?  Did they take notice of my intelligence and thought I would try to talk him into going back into living as female – something I would never do, by the way: if someone is not trans, why would I try to convince the opposite and cause the very same mind-body incongruity that I am trying to escape?  Anyway, I probably will never know, unless this person eventually reads this post and recognition ensues.)

The next time was when I mentioned a MTF transsexual I knew who had fathered a child.  My pastor’s response was that he could understand a person choosing gender transition if there was some physical gender ambiguity.  But if the person fathered a child, he was unquestionably male.  Within a month, I read the article on Stevie Crecelius to which I have posted a link.   Stevie, who been living as a female for about six years with a supportive second wife, fathered two children before learning from an ultrasound that she also had female organs inside of her and it explained the feelings she had all of her life.

More recently, when a Christian friend respectfully told me that she would not be contacting me any more, she made a statement to the effect that I could not have been born female because I was not born with a vagina.  Again, only weeks later, I came upon an article about a British teenager who had to deal with the fact that she was born without a vagina.  Furthermore, I found that this condition is not particularly rare in terms of birth defects.  MRKH (you can see the full term in the links) occurs in approximately 1 out of 4500 women. Statistically speaking, this means that in a city with the population of New York City, there would be about 900 women who were born either without or with a grossly underdeveloped vagina, cervix and uterus.  (I will be discussing this further in my next post.)

The bottom line is that the concept of gender and birth sexuality is not as cut and dried as people once believed.  As Alice Dreger discusses in the video I posted, there are XX “men” and XY “women” who develop in a body opposite their sex chromosomal norm because of insensitivity to certain hormones. (Note: the video appears to be suddenly cut off, but every version I found had the same length.)

The first section of links relate to various intersex conditions that interested me in terms of relevance to the MTF transsexual experience.  The second section relates to admittedly drier scientific articles discussing brain studies and how various tests and measurements show that the brains of MTF transsexuals are closer to the female normative than the male normative.

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth. – John 17:17

God bless,

Lois

I am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – part 3

Tags

Bible, Christianity, Genesis 1, Genesis creation narrative, God, Satan, Transsexual

To finish up this topic, we are going to look at a handful of other verses that I found where the Bible speaks about the in utero gestation process.  I can’t say for certain that I have provided an exhaustive list over these three related posts.  But the list appears to be an extensive, representative sample on the topic as addressed by the Bible.

Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. – Jeremiah 1:5

Thus saith the LORD that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee; Fear not, O Jacob, my servant; and thou, Jesurun, whom I have chosen. – Isaiah 44:2

These two verses echo the verses I previously presented on the work of the LORD in forming the human body from the moment of conception, and also knowing our personality from even before that moment.  There is still nothing in these verses that negates the Bible verses that speak to the effect of corruption on the formation of every human body.  There is nothing in any of these verses that claims that God creates us in such a way that we emerge from the birth canal with a perfectly formed body that is also in perfect harmony with the mind.

Of course the Bible would not make such a claim.  The Bible is Truth.  Such a claim would fly in the face of all the obvious evidence that many people are born with obvious and serious birth defects.  Most of these birth defects are not related to sex or gender, but many are.

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. – Psalm 127:3

This verse is only loosely connected to the topic, but I included it as part of my effort to make sure the topic was explored to the fullest.  Heritage can also be translated as “inheritance”.  The idea is that if an inheritance is given, it must have belonged to the giver before it was bequeathed.  Since the gift is fully bestowed at the moment of birth, it refers to the creator/owner relationship between God and the unborn child.  (Every inheritance given by people is given either at death or its contemplation.  Only an abundant and eternal God can give inheritance while knowing that He will never die.)

Children are a reward and blessing to the father as well as to the mother.  James 1:17 says that “every good gift and every perfect gift” comes from God in heaven.  Some gifts are perfect, others are merely good (and good coming from God is still very good indeed).  Children are not perfect as we have seen from other Bible verses and our own general knowledge.  They are merely good, at least until they reach the “terrible twos”!

As thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, nor how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest not the works of God who maketh all. – Ecclesiastes 11:5

This verse is similar to Job 38-41 where God admonishes Job with about 125 verses of things that God does which Job can neither do nor understand how it is done.  We know what is produced in the womb.  We know who forms the child (God with some interference by Satan).  We may even be able to clone (i.e., copy) a life from existing tissue.  But we do not know how to create a life out of nothing.  Even with all my science background (two years as an engineering major at Cornell, including college level courses in Chemistry, Physics and Mathematics designed for science and engineering majors), I suspect that man will never be able to reach that level of ability.

It’s like the story of the scientist who boasts to God that he can create a human life the way that God did in Genesis 1.  God tells him to go ahead and show what he can do.

So the scientist builds a laboratory. He obtains permission to directly connect to high voltage electrical power transmission lines to provide sufficient energy.  He brings in sophisticated machinery and test tubes, beakers and petri dishes.  Finally, he takes a shovel and begins to fill a barrel with dirt.

“Stop right there,” says God.

“What’s wrong?” replies the scientist.

“Get your own dirt,” answers God.

Anyway, to get back on point, once again there is nothing in this verse to contradict the teaching in two different verses that corruption and defect is part of how we were formed.  God is not part of the corruption, but He allows it for His own purposes.  And note how both spirit and physical body are connected in the same verse once again.

Part of my research for the three posts on this topic included visits to websites that use the Bible to “prove” that transsexuals who transition are dreadful sinners.  Indeed, they produced many verses to come to this conclusion.  A number of them were related to different areas of the discussion besides in utero formation.  I am not ignoring them.  They will be discussed in later posts.

What I found especially interesting, however, is that some of their arguments used the same verses that I use.  For example, one such essay used the Psalm 139 quote that I referenced in part one of this series.  However, they made sure that they elided the part about being formed in the lower parts of the earth.  It was inconvenient to their argument.  They cannot explain it away.  Better just to ignore it and hope that no one will notice?

Many of them also gave a great deal of weight to the creation story in Genesis 1, beginning with the point when the creation of mankind occurs.  They also point out where it says in Genesis 1:31, when God looked upon everything that He had made (including mankind) that it was “very good”.  But very good is not perfect, without spot or blemish.

More importantly, they ignore the fact that in Genesis 1, sin and corruption had not yet entered into the world.  That does not occur until Genesis 3.  Once Satan enters the picture and is given a foothold on earth, the paradise created by God on earth is lost (my shameless borrowing from John Milton’s work based on Genesis 1-3).  Things are no longer as they were in Genesis 1, nor will paradise be restored until the old heaven and old earth pass away and there is a new heaven and new earth.  Without being placed in proper context, including Psalm 51:5 and 139:15 that show the part corruption plays in our formation, Genesis 1:26-31 cannot be accurately included in this discussion.

While doing my research, it was interesting that I found a few websites that were either written by other Christian transsexuals or in support of transsexuals while using the Bible as part of that defense.  While many of them were still using the same arguments as I had seen in previous years, arguments that I had found incomplete (and in one or two cases, severely flawed), for the first time I saw Bible verses being used that I have come up with independently.  This cheered me a great deal.

This is not a time for rivalry.  Even if the work of some will eventually be recognized above others, all will benefit by truth being proclaimed.  As more voices are raised up that cannot be confounded, the sweet chorus will reach more and more people: fair-minded people who will be won over, just as they were when voices were raised up in opposition to arguments based on erroneous usage of Scripture that tried to justify the institution of slavery or the supposed inferiority of the black race.

Spiritually, there can be a time for the solitary voice, but the price is often steep for some who are called to that lot in life.  Tyndale, because of his lonely effort to produce an accurate Bible in the common language of England, was tied to the stake, strangled and burned.  Jeremiah, bringing God’s prophesy about the need for repentance or the southern kingdom would be brought captive to Babylon, was imprisoned and mocked by the prophets who prophesied smooth words that were not from the Lord.  Elijah alone challenged 450 prophets of Baal and the Lord gave him victory, but then immediately fled for his life from Queen Jezebel.  Isaiah prophesies about one who will be crying in the wilderness to prepare the way of the LORD.  (Christians believe that John the Baptist both fulfills the Isaiah prophesy and is of the type and spirit of Elijah.  He eventually was imprisoned and beheaded.)

Lonely voices have been crying in the wilderness proclaiming that being transsexual is not a sin.  Now, we are seeing scientific evidence, the majority opinion of the medical community and Biblical evidence coming together to support that proclamation.  It is my fervent hope even unto the shedding of tears as I write this, that voices are now been raised up and are coming together “for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14): a time of deliverance from the voices in the Christian community who would condemn us for nothing more than the circumstances of how we were born.

As such, a layperson’s look at the scientific evidence is in order for our next post.  Mostly, it will provide links to various websites or articles related to our topic and a brief discussion about each one.

God bless,

Lois

I am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – part 2

Tags

Adam, Bible, Christianity, Gender Identity, Genesis creation narrative, God, inner nature, Old Testament, Transsexual, Zechariah

In one of the skits in the early days of Saturday Night Live, Laraine Newman played a child psychologist.  The gag was that she was not a psychiatrist who treated children.  Instead, she was a little girl who practiced psychiatry.

The Bible contains twelve shorter books that are collectively called the Minor Prophets.  The phrase does not refer to child prodigies in the Jewish religion whose work was canonized.  Instead, it is an indication that their length is much shorter than the lengthier prophetic works such as Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel. 

I happened to be reading through the Minor Prophets recently.  I came across an interesting verse in Zechariah, the longest book of the twelve Minor Prophets.  This verse, which I had never taken special notice of before, makes a clear statement about the relationship between God and how people are given their innate inner nature.

The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. – Zechariah 12:1

The opening phrase of this verse is a common way in which another prophecy is introduced.  So it is not surprising that previously I had missed the final phrase.  I was focusing on the prophecy to come. 

The remainder of the verse uses a writing technique that is common throughout the Bible.  Rather than merely mentioning “the LORD”, it adds some descriptive phrases that reveal something about the LORD: His nature, His characteristics and/or His works. 

For today’s topic, we can focus on that final phrase.  Let’s look closer at the three key words in the last phrase, starting with the nouns.

“Spirit” – This is the Hebrew word “ruwach”, a word of frequent usage in the Old Testament.  It can either refer to the Spirit of God or spirit of man.  When referring to mankind, it can either refer to the breath of life or the inner nature and qualities of people: their abilities, temperament, emotions, moral character and so on.  In the discussion of man’s creation in Genesis 1 and 2, both of these usages of “spirit” are described. 

In Genesis 2:7, God breathes the breath of life into Adam, transforming a lifeless body into a living soul.  Earlier in Genesis 1:27 (a key verse we will be looking at in the future), God creates man in His own image.  We are going to take note of some very significant concepts here.  First, we are not talking about an exact duplicate.  Humans do not possess the quantity of God’s powers and abilities.  (His ways are far above our ways.)  But as in any copy, we display many of the same qualities.  We can see, think, create, feel, and so on.  Second, while God who can do anything is able to appear in corporeal form, the Bible tells us that He is spirit.  Therefore, created in His image, we are given a spirit that corresponds to our human nature along with one that is the breath of life.  Finally, while Genesis 2:7 clearly talks about the creation of the first man, the instructions provided in Genesis 1:28-29 indicate that this is for not only the first two people but to their descendants.

Just like Certs is both a breath mint and candy mint, “spirit” can be taken as both the breath of life and our inner nature.  God gives us the breath of life and He fashions our hearts.

“Man” – “‘adam” is the Hebrew word used here, and while it can be used to refer to the first human created, it’s more frequent use in the Old Testament is mankind in general.  This is fitting, for Adam was the prototype human.

A look at the verb in this phrase will give us an indication of the meaning of “man”.

“Formeth” – The Hebrew verb “yatsar” means to form, fashion or frame.  When God is the subject of the sentence or phrase, it can refer to original creation, creation in general or humans at the moment of conception.  Let’s look at the verb form to get a better understanding.

In this case, “yatsar” is an active participle.  Active merely means that the subject of the sentence is the actor (as opposed to the passive voice, where the doer of the action is the direct object of the sentence).  A participle represents an action or condition in its unbroken continuity.  Therefore, without the presence of a time-related modifier, we can interpret that the formation talked about here is an ongoing activity of God.  It follows that “man” in this phrase refers to mankind in general.

Thus, we have a verse that supports and strengthens the concept we saw in Psalm 139:13, that it is God who creates and gives us our innate inner nature.

Those who decry our transsexualism as being sinful try to place us in a Catch-22.  On the one hand, they take a position that is in accord with that of the medical community, that if we come upon an awareness of a non-conforming gender identity late in life, it must be seriously questioned.  It is more likely a mid-life crisis, an experiment, an emotional reaction to some major negative life event or delusional thinking.  (Caution: ceasing denial of gender identity or trying to fix it is not the same as having an initial awareness of it.)

But then they try to lock out the portion of the lifespan most closely connected with human development, by also discounting gender awareness at an early age.  Confronted with testimony of non-conforming gender feelings from a time of early awareness (let’s say at age three), they might respond with something like this: “How can you know anything that important when you are so young?  I didn’t even know how to tie my shoes at that age.  I thought babies came from the stork at that age.”  Or they will give other similar examples of what they did not know.

The difference is that they are referring to concrete knowledge.  Concrete knowledge can occur at any age.  Areas of concrete knowledge that require motor skills will be easiest to learn as the child gets older, but also very difficult to learn in old age.  Foreign languages, on the other hand, are much easier to learn when a person is young. 

Gender identity is more abstract than concrete.  We may be told that we are a boy or a girl, but those terms can refer to either biology or identity.  It doesn’t take long to learn the anatomical differences, whether we asked our parents or an older sibling, played doctor or picked up information from our peers.

No one can teach us our gender identity.  Not only is it abstract, it is also personal. In our early years, we get clues about gender from the cultural norms of gender expression.  For the vast majority of the population that is born cisgender, they accept the gender label given to them because, based on the understanding they have acquired of gender, the label fits with their inner nature given to them in the womb.  They have no need to make a conscious decision to be identified as male or female.  Just ask any cisgender person when they decided to become the gender in which they live. 

But for the transgender, once one becomes aware of what it means to be a boy or a girl in terms of gender identity, that person knows instinctively that it feels wrong.  The exact timing of that awareness will vary depending on various factors, but the overwhelming evidence is that it does occur at an early age (on average at age 7 and almost always by age 13).  And despite the buffeting of an inhospitable society against having a non-conforming gender identity, the overwhelming evidence is that it does not go away.    

Our personal gender identity is part of the inner nature that God creates within us before we are born.  Therefore we have it, and can know it and connect to it at any time in our life, even at an early age.  It does not need to be taught to us.  In fact, numerous failed attempts to try to teach gender identity (e.g., boys raised as girls after a botched circumcision) provide ample evidence that it cannot be taught.

Transgender people do not make a decision on gender identity any more than cisgender people do.  The decision we have to make is when do we stop denying the gender identity that we KNOW to be true and stop trying to conform to the label affixed to our identity (mental) solely by reason of our anatomy (physical).

It is very revealing that the same Christians who discount the ability of young children to know their gender identity, have no problem accepting the salvation testimonies of people who were saved at a similar period of one’s life.  I would be quickly corrected by most Christians if I discounted that someone else was born again at age seven because I wasn’t saved until I was thirty-six. 

To conclude today’s post, we will take a brief look at one other verse that supports another key idea we saw yesterday in Psalm 139.  This relates to Satan having a limited ability to interfere with God’s creation of us in the womb.  The meaning is fairly self-evident and doesn’t require much discussion.  But it is something that Christians should not lose sight of when they are rejoicing at the concept of being “fearfully and wonderfully made”.  If nothing else, it will help keep us humble.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. – Psalm 51:5

This topic will be continued in the next post.  There are a few more verses to consider.

God bless,

Lois

I am Fearfully and Wonderfully Made – part 1

Tags

Bible, Christianity, God, in utero, Old Testament, Psalm 139, Transsexual

This phrase, taken from Psalm 139, is used by some Christians as a proof text that transition for a transsexual is sin.  Is that accurate?  Let’s look at the whole text on the topic of in utero formation in that Psalm.

For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them. – Psalm 139:13-16

The general theme of Psalm 139 is that God knows all about us, even if we think we can hide from Him.  Verses 13-16 amplify that point, showing that God even knew all about us, not only before we were born but before we were conceived.

The remaining verses (17-24) praise the greatness of God’s knowledge, and then introduce the idea that the Psalmist (attributed as David) vehemently opposes wicked people, the people who oppose God.  In the last two verses of this section, connecting it back to the main theme, in humility David recognizes that there may be some wickedness in him.  He invites God, who knows all about him, to search for that wickedness and lead him away from it.

Now that we have the general context, let’s take a closer look at how we were made. 

In the very beginning of the text, we may be puzzled by the word “reins”.  After all, we are not riding a horse in the womb.  It is the Hebrew word “kilyah”.  Both words can either be translated literally as kidneys, or figuratively as the seat or source of emotions, feelings or affections.  It is similar to how we figuratively ascribe those same things to the heart in current usage.  Considering both the context (why would just one body part be singled out?) and the fact that the Hebrew word is translated as “kidneys” 18 times in the KJV, it is reasonable to conclude that here the reference is to emotions, feelings and affections: in other words, to a non-corporeal part of our nature.  We are not created tabula rasa (Latin for blank slate).  According to conservative commentary, this is not a controversial translation.

So what does it mean when it says God has possessed David’s reins (and by extension possessed them for everyone)?  This is the Hebrew word “qanah”.  When used in connection to God, it refers to that which He originated and created.  It connotes a sense of ownership.  Note that at least in this verse, it does not say that God possesses our entire body, just the reins.  But there is more to look at.

There is also the parallel statement that God covers us in the womb.  That appears to be a straightforward statement.  But some commentators try to stretch this verse to say that this means that God created our physical body.  This is because while the Hebrew verb “cakak” is usually translated as cover or defend or enclose, there is an alternate meaning (used as a translation twice out of the twenty-three times the word appears in the Old Testament): to weave together.  

In this context, the meaning of “cakak” appears to be most accurately translated that God protects us and hides us in the womb, not that He created our physical body.  The point is moot, however.  The next verse does give a clearer indication of God’s work in our physical development in utero.  And this brings us to the phrase being used to declare that being transsexual and acting upon it is sinful.

It is hard to imagine any quarrel with “wonderfully” being part of the text.  The idea of the gestation period culminating in birth being a miracle, a marvel or a wonder is common.  The use of the word “fearfully”, however, might be troublesome for some people.

What we have to understand is that there are two types of fear in the Bible.  One is positive and the other, manifested in two different ways, is negative.  The Hebrew word in this passage, “yare’”, can be translated in either way.  Used in this context, it is the positive type.  It speaks to the awesome reverence that one has for God, recognizing how much greater He is than mankind.  While it includes an understanding of God’s power and what He could do to us, it is far more encompassing than that, because a true understanding of that greatness includes all of His nature, including His compassion, His wisdom and so on.  Therefore, He is worthy of all glory, honor and respect.

Immediately following this phrase is that His works are very marvelous.  This connects directly to both how we are made and how very special is the birth of a baby.

So we can acknowledge who made us according to Scripture.  But where and how were we made? 

The next verse begins with a return to the idea that we were covered in the womb.  But while we were being made in secret, we were not hidden from God.  Indeed, how could we be hidden from the one who made us?  Yet immediately following, there is a statement that conveys something so unexpected from what has been stated up to now, that even David describes it as curious.  We were made in the lowest parts of the earth.

Now if we are made by God, wouldn’t we expect to be made in heaven?  What’s going on here?  Is there a contradiction?  How do we explain this?  These are questions that need to be answered.

The Hebrew phrase “tachtiy ‘erets” is translated literally here.  The word for earth carries with it a sense that it is used in contrast with heaven.  David uses the same Hebrew phrase in Psalm 63:9.  It describes where those who are seeking to kill David (implicitly because he is a follower of God) will be sent after God judges them.  In both cases, we are talking spiritually, not about the earth’s core. 

In the New Testament (Ephesians 4:9), the KJV translators used the same phrase in English as Psalm 63:9 to describe where Jesus descended spiritually while his body was in the tomb between the crucifixion and the resurrection.  It is what is referred to in the Apostle’s Creed in the phrase “He ascended into hell.”

Now let it be understood that this is not referring to the place of final, eternal destruction.  Indeed, we could not have been born if our formation occurred in such a place.  Revelation 20:14 states that even “death and hell” will be thrown into the place of final, eternal destruction.  So there is something even worse than this reference to hell.  But we should still understand that the lowest parts of the earth is not a very nice place. 

So guess what, those of you Christians who accuse us of sin merely because of our transsexual identity?  You were formed in the lower parts of the earth, right alongside of us!

Lest we become high-minded, let us quickly move on to the rest of the passage.  Most of the last verse (also the last sentence) seems to follow from the preceding three verses.  But we do have to be careful with the word “unperfect”.  First of all, the prefix “un” would be “in” or “im” in modern English, as in the phrase in the Declaration of Independence “they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”  Today, we would use the word “inalienable”. 

In the same way, we can understand this word better as “imperfect”.  But before we jump to a conclusion that this is referring to birth defects, we have to consider that in the early 17^th century, “perfect” was often used as a synonym for “complete”.  In fact, the lack of awareness of this causes confusion in the understanding of other parts of Scripture.  But that discussion is for another time.

The Hebrew word here is “golem”.  This is a word that has evolved into vastly different meaning in Jewish folklore and in Modern Hebrew.  But the word, used only this one time in the Old Testament, is generally agreed by scholars to mean embryo or fetus.  For whatever reason, the translators used a euphemism (perhaps for the same reason that there was a time when you could not say the word “pregnant” on television or radio and had to use a phrase like “with child”).  But the meaning is the same.  We were formed from nothingness to a state of being incomplete but continually fashioned until we were ready to be born.

We know that birth defects do occur.  Can we derive an understanding of the cause of birth defects from this passage?  To ask it another way, does God cause them or allow them?

Where does Satan have power and authority, even if it is a limited leasehold? According to the Bible, it is on and in the earth.  Three different times, the Gospel of John calls Satan the “prince of this earth”.  A slight variation is presented by Paul in 2^nd Corinthians 4:4 where Satan is called the “god of this world” (note the lower case “g”).  Satan is also referred to as either the ruler or power of darkness. 

Now put this information together with Jesus talking about people being punished by being cast into “outer darkness”.  Furthermore, 2^nd Peter and Jude refer to the angels who rebelled against God.  From these accounts, we are told that they are cast into hell and chained in (or under) darkness to be held until the end of time judgment.

Where else can one get more into the earth and away from heaven than in the lower parts of the earth?  The connections are all there: hell, darkness and punishment.

Finally, let’s look at an Old Testament lesson on this subject: the book of Job.  What did God grant Satan in Job 1:12 and 2:6?  Limited authority to attack Job, first his possessions and family and then Job’s own body.  Also, we note that Satan told God that he had been walking up and down the earth (surveying his territory, one might say).  In addition, it was God, not Satan who brought up the topic of Job, and by the end of the story we can see God’s purpose in doing so.

Ultimately, the Christian has to discern what the Bible says about the cause of birth defects, God or Satan.  When the question is framed that way, the inclination would be to blame Satan, not God.  Seeing that Satan has some authority in this realm, that the lower part of the earth and darkness is part of his habitation, and that he is the author of harm and evil against people, the inclination is correct.  Satan sticks his wicked finger into what was originally God’s perfect creation in His own image.  As a result, no one is created without “spot or blemish” (i.e., imperfection).

In the next post, we are going to look at the implications of the Biblical teaching that it is God who creates the seat or cause of emotions in a person.  In later posts, we will look at more verses that are used to talk about how we were made.

God bless,

Lois

Obamacare and the Transsexual – Part 3

Tags

Obamacare, Transsexual

With today’s post, we conclude our discussion of Obamacare as it relates to the transgender community, especially to transsexuals.

The major concerns generally revolve around the creation and incentives under the new law to participate in a national electronic medical record database (aka EMR).  This is a serious concern of many privacy advocates and medical ethicists, and relates to Americans whether transgendered or not.  But there are some issues that are especially connected to the transgender individual.

1) Privacy issues within the medical community: there are admittedly benefits to medical care providers having access to all of your medical records.  An example is if you are a thousand miles from home and have a medical emergency that renders you unconscious.  Through the personal identification you normally carry, your medical records could be accessed from anywhere to inform the doctors of any medicines or forms of anesthesia that you are allergic to.

The downside is that medical personnel also have access to all your medical records, even in non-emergency situations.  Therefore, they may know more about you than needed for you to receive proper medical care.  It may also be more than you would care to disclose to this particular doctor and his staff.

Let’s say you need to see a foot doctor for a bunion or severe ingrown toenail.  You are able to tell the doctor anything he needs to know about a local anesthetic or any medication he needs to prescribe.  However, he still has access to your entire medical history.

First of all, transsexuals tend to have had greater usage of mental health services than the general public.  Have you or are you being treated by a psychiatrist for depression?  Perhaps the depression and gender conflict was so severe that it led to substance abuse, or suicidal thoughts or attempts?  Of course, your HRT and any transition related surgeries will all be part of your record.  This is all available to the foot doctor.

Some of the entries in your record could be quite embarrassing when seen by someone who has no reason to know about your transgender identity.  Let’s say there is an “F” on your record for your gender, but you were born with a male body. Does your foot doctor need to know your latest PSA score or the fact that sometime in the past, you were treated for erectile dysfunction?

There have been calls to change the EMR database functions so that the medical practitioners can only have access to that part of your record relevant to the case before them.  So far, the law has not been changed to do so.

2) Privacy issues with bureaucrats: entirely new bureaucracies are being created to oversee Obamacare.  In addition to the new auditors the IRS will be hiring (between one and two thousand), Health and Human Services will hire their own bureaucrats to make determinations that can affect the type of health care you can and cannot receive, even if you have insurance with a private company.

Section 1311 of the law empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Service to standardize what doctors do in their practice of medicine.  The Secretary will not be doing that work herself.  A reasonable assumption is that a multitude of bureaucratic minions will be gathering the data and writing up the recommendations that will eventually become the regulations that are published in the Federal Register and adopted (with some possible modifications after the comment period).

I had a discussion about this with my tech person who helped me set up my blog and is also a potential reader.  (Hi!)  Let’s just say that he is in a position to know that in the current environment, teams of professionals who provide technical support to the health care industry need to have access to this kind of data so they can do the job for which they were contracted.  He assured me that anyone violating patient privacy even in the slightest is subject to immediate dismissal.

There are some key differences, however.  I worked for HUD for 2½ years prior to working for a local housing authority.  And I deal with IRS agents on a regular basis.  Therefore, I am familiar with the government bureaucrat mentality.  They simply do not have the same level of professionalism as the type of person with private industry access to medical records currently.  Nor are they likely to have the kinds of salary and benefits packages that would make a person think long and hard about violating privacy and risking their jobs.

Perhaps most important, there are dozens of tech professionals with access to only a slice of patient medical data compared to thousands of bureaucrats who will have access to all of it.  In some ways, this is a numbers game.  And it only takes one person who decides that the right thing to do for his or her country is to out trans people.

One more potential risk was recently reported.  A very active hacker group called “Anonymous” has been breaking into various government websites and stealing privacy-compromising data.  In addition to the EMR database, it has been widely reported that security for HealthCare.gov has not been properly tested.  In one case, a hacker was given the name of a CBS News employee who had signed up on that website.  Within a minute, the hacker was able to come up with the employee’s answer to the security question.

3) Programming issues: this is related to the never-ending, oft-repeated disconnect between the programmer and the end user.  Transsexuals are a tiny percentage of the population.  Anti-discrimination notwithstanding, one concern brought up at the medical conference I attended was that our needs would slip through the cracks in the development of the data base.  Remember, multi-millions of dollars were spent to create the flaw-riddled HealthCare.gov website.  One would like to have faith that the database will be done right, but we have to consider the track record.

Potential problem number one is that our identification is limited to either an M or an F when it comes to gender.  (And while this is not a unanimous opinion in the transgender community, many of us would not want to be put in a third category.)  Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that the EMR database will conform to that: only two choices for the gender field.

I have usually been able to look over the shoulder of the nurse when she is entering any of my new information (weight, blood pressure, etc.) collected during my exam that day.  As she enters data, new screens automatically pop up based on what has been entered or is part of my basic information.  If an F is in the gender field, the screen for a prostate exam will never appear.  For a FTM, an M in the gender field will preclude the screen for a pap smear.

This is will probably prove to be a less serious concern than the privacy issues in the long run.  However, it is still something that will take time to surface and remedy.  And remember, the more obviously we are identifiable, the more likely the privacy issues can come back to haunt us.

For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast … – portion of Jeremiah 30:17.

In my next post, I will begin to look at what the Bible says about how we are formed or made before we are born.

God bless,

Lois

Obamacare and the Transsexual – Part 2

Tags

discrimination, health care, health insurance, Obamacare, Transsexual

As promised, today we will look at the positive aspects of the new health care law (Obamacare) as it relates to transsexuals in particular, and in some cases to the transgender community in general.

1) The new law unequivocally prohibits discrimination by health care providers and insurers against transgender identified people.  That is a tremendous victory.  Still, we have to be sober-minded and remember the war isn’t over.  As a supportive hospital administrator recently remarked at a health care conference I attended, policy does not always equate with performance.  It will take a while for doctors and staff to be trained in the practical application of the law.  Procedures may need to be worked out for questions such as, will a man or woman share your semi-private room.  So there will be pockets of ignorance, especially in the beginning.

There will also be pockets of resistance.  I can give you an example from personal experience in a different area: fair housing.

A quick overview: the Civil Rights Act of 1866 prohibited housing discrimination.  However, the law had no teeth.  No federal enforcement provisions have been provided.  (Note: I have not heard anything about how anti-discrimination against transsexuals will be enforced.)  Title VIII of the Civil Rights of 1968 (over 100 years later!) took care of that oversight, as well as expanding the scope of the law.

Back in the early 1980’s, I served as the Section 8 Housing Director for a local housing authority.  I oversaw the part of Section 8 that dealt with low income families and individuals in private residences who were seeking or receiving rent subsidies.  I found out about a vacant apartment with a landlord willing to accept Section 8.  I referred the next family on my list to the landlord.  They were black.  They were told that it had already been rented.  A few days later, a white woman looking for Section 8 assistance came into my office and told me that she had found an apartment.  It was the same apartment that the black couple had been turned away from.  I referred the case to the county’s Human Rights Commission and some measure of success was achieved.  But the point is, this was nearly 15 years after the Fair Housing Act was passed.

Yes, we now have solid grounds to fight against discrimination and appeal decisions that are discriminatory against transsexuals.  Just remember that some of those fights will occur when we are vulnerable due to serious health issues, and we have either been refused timely health care, or we have been denied insurance coverage and will need to deal with a stack of bills, calls from bill collectors and the like until hopefully the issues is finally resolved in our favor.  Make no mistake.  I am as thrilled as anyone about the anti-discrimination provision.  But, having been through the wars, I have to be realistic.

2) Affordable health insurance for low-income individuals and families:  Some of us, perhaps connected to some of the issues related to our transsexualism, find ourselves in low income situations, but not so low that we currently qualify for Medicaid.  Therefore, we find ourselves unable to afford health insurance. Our employers do not provide it or we are self-employed.  Now we have coverage for at least some of the medical bills we have been paying out of pocket.

3) Coverage for pre-existing conditions:  This is especially important for those of us who were paying out of pocket.  Now that we will be getting insurance, we will be bringing pre-existing conditions to the table.  They can’t be excluded from coverage.

For our final post on this topic, we will look at some possible negative concerns of Obamacare as it relates to the transgender community.

Obamacare and the Transsexual – Part 1

Tags

Obamacare, Transsexual

The wit and wisdom of Walt Kelly, as put into the mouths of the characters in his comic strip, Pogo, come to mind as a proper way to introduce this topic.  For example:

Y’see, when you start to lick a national problem you have to go after the fundamentables. You want to cut down air pollution? Cut down the original source… Breathin! (Churchy speaking to Howland)

Is we runnin’ TO it or FROM it? (Beauregard, in response to being awakened from sleep by a stampede of animals and being told “The DAM is bust”)

For the handful of readers outside of the United States, I understand that this topic will not be of much interest to you, except from a purely academic point of view.  But there will be more posts to come regarding topics of broader interest.  I need to post this now, because it is timely.  Because of the length and complexity, it will take three days.

This is a difficult topic to write about, not because it is painful, but because it is complex and there are so many conflicting opinions about it.  This is not surprising, considering that it is a 2572 page law, with many sections referring to changes being made in other laws.

Here is a passage from Section 6056 of the law.  I am told it is representative of much of the law.

1) Subparagraph (B) of section 6724(d)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (relating to definitions), as amended by Section 1502, is amended by striking “or” at the end of clause (xxiii), by striking “and” at the end of clause (xxiv) and inserting “or” and by inserting after clause (xxiv) the following new clause:

“(xxv) section 6056 (relating to returns relating to large employers required to report on health coverage), and”

2) Paragraph (2) of section 6724(d) of such Code, as so amended, is amended by striking “or” at the end of subparagraph (FF), by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (GG) and inserting “or” and by inserting after subparagraph (GG) the following new subparagraph:

(HH) section 6056c (relating to statements relating to large employers required to report on health insurance coverage).

Were you able to make it all the way through?  Or did your mind start to numb and you skipped ahead, rightly assuming that the rest was more of the same?  Is it any wonder that those who promoted and passed the law admitted that they hadn’t read it?  Nor, in the three years since, has there been much enthusiasm for anyone to read it and check all the cross-references, too.  You can be sure, however, that those whose financial well-being will be affected by the new law have studied it intently.  I am speaking of hospitals, other health care facilities, medical practitioners and insurance companies.

So even a limited discussion on Obamacare is a daunting task.  Even so, if we have been able to face and begin to deal with the issues of transition, what challenge in life will be too big for us?  Therefore, I press on.  Whether confident or foolish, I will let you decide.

First, I need to disclose that I will probably benefit from Obamacare financially.  While I have not yet applied for myself, I have helped a client apply.  He is in similar circumstances to me: a resident of New York State, single, under 65, and self-employed.  It gave me a look at the income guidelines for subsidies.  So I know that I am likely to have my insurance heavily subsidized, perhaps even up to 100%.  Fortunately, the New York State website was easy to access and navigate, not the like the current nightmare of the Federal site.

In the next post, I will discuss the positive aspects of the new health care law as it relates to the transgender community, especially to transsexuals.