9 Things You Should Know About Transgenderism

Transgenderism has been a frequently discussed topic over the past few weeks. On May 30, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services review board ruled that Medicare can pay for the "reassignment" surgery sought by the transgendered. A few days later Time magazine's cover story on the "transgender tipping point" declared the social movement is "poised to challenge deeply held cultural beliefs." And last week the Southern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination, overwhelmingly passed a resolution titled “On Transgender Identity.” Since the topic will be coming up for some time to come, here are nine things you should know about transgenderism.

1. Transgenderism is an umbrella term for the state or condition of identifying or expressing a gender identity that does not match a person's physical/genetic sex. Transgender is independent of sexual orientation, and those who self-identify as transgender may consider themselves to be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, polysexual, or asexual. Approximately 700,000 individuals in the U.S. identify as transgender.

2. Transgenderism differs from intersex, a variation in sex characteristics including chromosomes, gonads, or genitals that do not allow an individual to be distinctly identified as male or female. Intersex is a physical condition while transgender is a psychological condition. The vast majority of people with intersex conditions identify as male or female rather than transgender or transsexual. (The term "hermaphrodite" is now considered outdated, inaccurate, and offensive as a reference to people who are intersex.)   Continue at Joe Carter

Why Surgery is not the Answer for Transgender

This should be the last item on transgender for the week, but it is one that readers will want to pay very close attention to. Dr. Paul McHugh is the former psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and he has penned a revealing column for The Wall Street Journal opinion page. In short, he challenges the notion that sex-reassignment surgery is good for transgendered persons. His data are very compelling. He writes:  

You won’t hear it from those championing transgender equality, but controlled and follow-up studies reveal fundamental problems with this movement. When children who reported transgender feelings were tracked without medical or surgical treatment at both Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic, 70%-80% of them spontaneously lost those feelings. Some 25% did have persisting feelings; what differentiates those individuals remains to be discerned.   Continue at Denny Burk

Southern Baptists Pass Resolution on Transgender

Last week, I wrote about a resolution that I proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention (along with my co-sponsor Andrew Walker). The resolutions committee did a fine job with it and offered many helpful improvements to the text that we sent them. The final draft of resolution #9 titled “On Transgender Identity” is printed below. The messengers just voted overwhelmingly in favor of the resolution. In fact, I couldn’t see a single ballot raised against it.

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<strong>ON TRANSGENDER IDENTITY</strong>

WHEREAS, All persons are created in God’s image and are made to
glorify Him (Genesis 1:27; Isaiah 43:7); and

WHEREAS, God’s design was the creation of two distinct and com-
plementary sexes, male and female (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4; Mark 10:6) which designate the fundamental distinction that God
has embedded in the very biology of the human race; and

WHEREAS, Distinctions in masculine and feminine roles as
ordained by God are part of the created order and should find expres-
sion in every human heart (Genesis 2:18, 21–24; 1 Corinthians
11:7–9; Ephesians 5:22–33; 1 Timothy 2:12–14); and   Continue at Denny Burk

Transgender Issues: Far From the Final Frontier

In a groundbreaking decision, a federal review board on Friday ruled that transgender people are now eligible to receive Medicare coverage for gender-reassignment surgeries.

The ruling by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Departmental Appeals Board amended a 33-year policy that required the government health insurance program to automatically deny coverage for such procedures. Under the new guidelines, gender-reassignment surgeries will be treated as an ordinary medical procedure and applications for coverage will be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The board’s decision was made in response to a lawsuit filed last year by several national LGBT groups on behalf of Denee Mallon, 74, a biological man who identifies as a woman.

As Stephanie Armour of the Wall Street Journal observes,

“Although the Department of Health and Human Services appeals-board decision involved a single case—a New Mexico woman who sought gender-reassignment surgery—it could have broad ramifications because private insurance companies and Medicaid, the state-federal program for the poor, often follow Medicare’s lead on coverage.”   Continue at Timothy Kleiser

The Mass Delusion of Transgenderism

Regardless of the question of whether he has had his genitals amputated, Cox is not a woman, but an effigy of a woman. Sex is a biological reality, and it is not subordinate to subjective impressions, no matter how intense those impressions are, how sincerely they are held, or how painful they make facing the biological facts of life. No hormone injection or surgical mutilation is sufficient to change that.

Genital amputation and mutilation is the extreme expression of the phenomenon, but it is hardly outside the mainstream of contemporary medical practice. The trans self-conception, if the autobiographical literature is any guide, is partly a feeling that one should be living one’s life as a member of the opposite sex and partly a delusion that one is in fact a member of the opposite sex at some level of reality that transcends the biological facts in question. There are many possible therapeutic responses to that condition, but the offer to amputate healthy organs in the service of a delusional tendency is the moral equivalent of meeting a man who believes he is Jesus and inquiring as to whether his insurance plan covers crucifixion.   Continue at Gospel Coalition 

The Atheistic Logic of LGBT Sexuality