It’s not very often I just recommend a piece for reading without much commentary on my part, but comments on recent Ex-Gay Watch posts have indicated that many are unfamiliar with the ex-transgender component of the ex-gay movement.
This recommended reading post is a personal story piece by Marti Abernathey that explains how she used to be ex-transgender, and now understands herself to be ex-ex-transgender – or as Marti says, “In the end I’m not really ex-ex- anything. I’m me.”
The Washington Blade picked it up for their BlogWatch for June 5th, so as one might guess Ms. Abernathey’s piece is well written.
TransAdvocate.com: Confessions of A Ex-Ex-Transgender
Excerpt:
You’ve probably heard of the ex-gay movement. You may have even heard of the ex-ex-gay movement. Odds are slim that you know anyone that is ex-transgender. But have you ever known anyone that is ex-ex-transgender?
You have if you’ve read this blog…
——
Pam Ferguson contributed to this post.
Federal legislation on expanding hate crimes to include violent attacks against individuals on the basis of “gender, sexual orientation and gender identity” is currently being reviewed by the Senate. Christians have strongly voiced opposition to the expansion, arguing that the bill could silence believers who view homosexuality as sinful. That also applies to the transgender.–Lillian Kwon, Christian Post Staff Writer
Lillian Kwon recently wrote an article for the Christian Post entitled Media Bias on Transgenders Raising Concerns. The concern, expressed by Dr. Robert Gagnon, Peter LaBarbera and Kwon, is that there are portrayals in the first place, and that these portrayals are often positive.
Dr. Robert Gagnon, associate professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, is quoted in the article as claiming that 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 contains a prohibition against transgenderism:
Alluding to Scripture (1 Corinthians 6:9-10), Gagnon quoted Apostle Paul listing persons who will “not inherit the kingdom of God.” The list includes the “effeminate” or “soft men,” which is essentially the closest thing to transgenderism, Gagnon pointed out.
Noted Yale historian John Boswell, in his book Christianity, Social Tolerance, And Homosexuality (p. 106,107) said this about the passage Dr. Gagnon quoted:
There are three passages in the writings of Paul which have been supposed to deal with homosexual relations. Two words in I Corinthians 6:9 and one in I Timothy 1:10 have been taken at least since the early twentieth century to indicate that “homosexuals” will be excluded from the kingdom of heaven.The first of the two, “
” (basically, “soft”), is an extremely common Greek word; it occurs elsewhere in the New Testament with the meaning “sick” and in patristic writings with senses as varied as “liquid,” “cowardly,” “refined,” “weak willed,” “delicate,” “gentle,” and “debauched.” In a specifically moral context it very frequently means “licentious,” “loose,” or “wanting in self-control.” At a broad level, it might be translated as either “unrestrained” or “wanton,” but to assume that either of these concepts necessarily applies to gay people is wholly gratuitous. The word is never used in Greek to designate gay people as a group or even in reference to homosexual acts generically, and it often occurs in writings contemporary with the Pauline epistles in reference to heterosexual persons or activity.
Dr. Dale Martin, in Arsenokoités and Malakos: Meanings and Consequences, adds the following:
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Researchers Kenneth J. Zucker and Susan J. Bradley are names that every gay man and lesbian woman should know, especially if they were treated to become “straight” at a camp or a ex-gay affirming psychologist’s office — but almost no one knows who Zucker and Bradley are.
The National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuals (NARTH) quotes Zucker and Bradley often in defense of treating children diagnosed with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) — described as a “pre-homosexual condition” by Joseph Nicolosi in his book A Parents Guide To Preventing Homosexuality. (Update – See Further Reading‘s GID Reform Advocates: DSM-IV-TR: Gender Identity Disorder in Children, 302.6 for how the Childhood GID applies to LGB people.)
Kenneth Zucker and Susan Bradley are from the Clark Institute (CAMH), specifically the institution’s Gender Identity Clinic.
In Gene Chase’s review of Zucker & Bradley’s Gender Identity Disorder and Psychosexual Problems in Children and Adolescents, Chase states of Zucker and Bradley:
They are specialists in Gender Identity Disorder (GID), which is the last vestige of the characterization of homosexuality as a disorder in the old APA DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual].
Recall that GID is the feeling of conflict in one’s gender. It is not being transsexual (ts), since no biology is a part of the diagnosis. It is not being transgendered (tg) alone, since that may not be conflicting. It is not cross-dressing, since that is a behavior not a feeling.
Here’s what has been said about Zucker and Bradley’s work, some of it in their own words:
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I’ve been the victim of sexual harassment.
Near the end of my 20-year, U.S. Navy career, a subordinate of mine decided I was gay and didn’t want me in his Navy – he talked to my last four division officers trying to get an investigation into my alleged homosexuality started on me.
My subordinate finally found a sympathetic ear in a new Executive Officer (XO). I got called in front of the XO twice. I’d stayed within the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) rules, but he asked me if I were gay anyway.
I wrote up my subordinate and my XO for male-on-male sexual harassment — they violated the DADT rules in a way that met the Navy’s three criteria for sexual harassment:
1. The attention was unwelcome.
2. The harassment was sexual in nature.
3. The harassment involved the workplace.
Unfortunately for my harassers, for seven years of my military career I’d been a Naval Equal Opportunity and Sexual Harassment instructor. Both of my harassers were found at the end of investigation to have committed male-on-male sexual harassment. The Navy didn’t take male-on-male sexual harassment seriously, so my subordinate’s punishment was a verbal reprimand, and my XO got a “fiche 5″ service record entry.
I knew the rules and criteria for sexual harassment. (One can read more of my DADT story on the SLDN‘s or HRC‘s website.)
Why mention my story of harassment here? Matt Barber of the Concerned Women For America’s Culture And Family Institute recently announced what he believes a sexually harassing, hostile work environment is created when a transwoman uses a female designated bathroom.
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Chuck Colson of BreakPoint Ministries has a very colorful history. The first member of the Nixon administration to serve prison time for the Watergate cover-up, he founded Prison Fellowship Ministries barely two years after in 1976. While Colson has gained respect for his work with prisons, there doesn’t appear to be anything in his history that would prepare him to speak authoritatively on LGBT issues. However, this has not stopped him from chiming in on the subject with only bad sources as a guide, spending his conservative capital to propel his message along the way.
In a recent radio broadcast (Real Audio of the April 23rd broadcast: here) he spoke with great authority on a number of LGBT issues. Some of the quotes from this broadcast, Coming to a School Near You; Normalizing Homosexuality, regarding the Sex Education curriculum controversy of Montgomery County Public Schools, include the following:
Worst of all, there is no mention whatsoever of the many health hazards associated with the gay lifestyle. A Montgomery County parent group, called Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, includes an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Ruth Jacobs. Dr. Jacobs put forward a petition signed by 270 doctors asking Montgomery County to warn kids of the health dangers related to homosexuality. Montgomery County ignored it.
Colson, not surprisingly, falls back on the religious right’s favorite catch-all phrase, “the gay lifestyle,” knowing that none of his listeners will call on him to define it. There is no more one “gay lifestyle” than there is one “straight lifestyle” or one “Christian lifestyle,” of course, but admitting that would undermine his point entirely, since many gay men and women avoid the risky behaviors that Colson attributes to all GLBT individuals.
Dr. Jacobs does appear to be an infectious disease specialist as advertised, which lends weight to her arguments about the dangers of anal sex, but unfortunately she (like Colson) seems to tie her entire argument against the “gay lifestyle” to this particular practice.
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Whenever I discuss transgender medical or therapeutic treatments here at the Ex-Gay Watch, I always seem to go back to the Harry Benjamin Standards Of Care. Like or hate this document (and the GID diagnosis), what the document does is provide criteria for determining if one has a condition that falls under the document’s purview; it provides a general outline of what medical and psychological treatments are appropriate for transsexuals; and it lists timelines and benchmarks for when particular treatments are considered appropriate.
Many medical and mental health conditions have standards of care — evidence-based clinical practice guidelines. There are standards of care for everything from treating ingrown toenails to managing Alzheimer’s disease; from treating acute dental trauma to treating bipolar disorders.
The National Guideline Clearinghouse™ maintains a public resource for many of these guidelines.
Not too surprisingly, there are no entries in the National Guideline Clearinghouse™ for Same Sex Attraction Disorder (SSAD) — no evidence-based clinical practice guidelines listed there for how to conduct conversion therapies for a SSAD (or any other named disorder relating to treatment of homosexuality or unwanted homosexual propensities) diagnosis.
National Association For Research & Therapy Of Homosexuality (NARTH) indicates this about its function:
NARTH’s function is to provide psychological understanding of the cause, treatment and behavior patterns associated with homosexuality, within the boundaries of a civil public dialogue.
After reading the organization’s function one might think that the organization would maintain an evidence-based clinical practice guideline for treating unwanted homosexual propensities. Yet, if one searches the NARTH website, one finds they have no published standard of care for SSAD, or standard of care for any other titled disorder relating to treatment of homosexuality or unwanted homosexual propensities.
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The National Association For Research And Therapy Of Homosexuality (NARTH) is again commenting on transgender issues, although their mission, vision, and previous leadership statements have indicated that their focus has “nothing to do with any social issue other than same-sex attraction.”
NARTH recently posted an article on their website entitled NYU Students Find Accepting Campus For Transsexuals. In the article, Christopher Rosik, Ph.D. (a member of the NARTH Scientific Advisory Committee) is quoted:
While transgendered students are clearly in need of our compassion, I suspect that simply affirming their disjuncted gender identity does them a disservice. A preferable first response would be to determine if any help can be provided to lessen the disjunction for these individuals.
Follow up studies of transsexuals have suggested that, while interventions such as sex change surgery reduced distress due to the perceived gender incongruity, their relational, vocational and emotional difficulties continued unabated. The collusion of NYU officials with these students’ psychological reality to the apparent exclusion of encouraging them to seek help is therefore ill advised.
The gist of Rosik’s message seems to be that he doesn’t believe New York University should be trans-affirmative. Since a significant number of post-operative transsexuals still have employment, relationship, and emotional problems, Rosik believes the goal of treatment shouldn’t be to affirm a transgender person’s gender identity, but rather to affirm that their gender be joined or rejoined to their natal sex. Rosik doesn’t clarify whether or not he believes joining or rejoining gender to natal sex would then, by itself, solve all of these individuals other employment, relationship, and emotional problems.
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David Roberts recently wrote a short piece entitled Exodus President Alan Chambers is Clear About Coulter Comment. David praised and thanked Alan Chambers for making the unambiguous comment regarding Ann Coulter’s use of the pejorative faggot:
Used in any context, this hurtful word is used to demean an individual who is valuable to God. There is nothing to be gained by denigrating others with crude slurs. In doing so, we disgrace ourselves and discredit the truths we seek to publicly elevate.
Wow: “[N]othing to be gained by denigrating others with crude slurs.” That’s a powerful statement.
I wish Alan Chambers’ idea of loving the LGBT neighbor next door by treating them with respect would be embraced by other conservative Christian/ex-gay affirming organizations, especially when it comes to transgender people like me.
An example of not taking Chambers’ and Exodus International’s cautions against verbal slurs to heart include a recent piece in The Record, the online publication of the Christian Civic League of Maine (CCLM). The piece by Mike Hein — All My Tranny Children — begins by using tranny as a slur in the article’s header. He then goes on in the article to state:
Maine Teacher Makes Queer Television History
Maine’s most famous transgendered man, Jennifer Finney Boylan, is set to make daytime network television history this week, and the radical homosexual Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) organization praises ABC Television for making “the unfamiliar [transgendered men and women] familiar.”
Starring as himself in ABC’s daytime soap opera, All My Children, Boylan (formerly James Boylan) and five other transgendered adults play a transgendered support group. The group coach ‘Zoe,’ a young female character played by a Jeffrey Carlson. The now-female ‘Zoe’ character is involved in a lesbian relationship with ‘Bianca,’ another female character on the show. Boylan is the transgendered support group leader…
…Boylan remains married to his wife despite having taken on a female persona in 2001 while still in his early 30s and despite having young sons. He mentions his experiences while taping the All My Children episode recently in his March 4 Kennebec Journal column “There from Here.” “I asked my boys and my spouse if they had any interest in coming down to the set the next day to watch me film my scenes,” writes Boylan. “My son Zach wrinkled his nose.”
As one can see, Mike Hein not only uses tranny as a slur, he sedulously points out Boylan’s former male name. And even though Boylan has had sex reassignment surgery, Hein makes a point of frequently and only using male pronouns to refer to Boylan.
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Julie Marie Nemecek, formerly known as John Nemecek, has recently filed a suit against Spring Arbor University (SAU). The University is firing the transgender professor/Baptist minisiter effective June 1st, choosing not to tolerate Nemecek’s transformation from John to Julie Marie:
Pastor Tom Ramundo is superintendent for the southern Michigan conference of the Free Methodist Church, a conservative evangelical denomination with which the university is affiliated. He says Nemecek has been a cause célèbre for homosexual activist groups like PFLAG — Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.
“It seems very carefully orchestrated,” says Ramundo in reference to the discrimination claim; “the way they’re going about it, the legal connections, the public relations move. I feel this professor has been very carefully coached on how to respond, on how to ‘come out,’ on how to build a case.”
According to Ramundo, Nemecek had been ignoring clear guidelines the school had laid out for him. “I know that university really well, and I know its leadership,” he says. “I am sure they have endeavored to treat him in a redemptive way.” The Free Methodist superintendent describes the situation as “just one of those issues where there’s that tension between love and purity, and the school’s just finally having to take a strong biblical stand.”
Can one be a transgender Christian? Rev. Ramundo apparently doesn’t think so. Neither does Spring Arbor University President Gayle Beebe, who has stated that Nemecek’s transition is “not in keeping with Biblical principles” and “inconsistent with the Christian faith.”
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Recently, I wrote a piece on Mike Ensley’s take on gender fluidity. He responded in his personal blog with an article entitled What do I know about gender? In the article he states:
…I can see how in a different circumstance (different city, family, influences) I might have gone down the road of transgenderism. A lot of people have backgrounds similar to mine, but didn’t end up struggling with same-sex attractions like I have. We’re all different and broken in different ways–but we can still understand one another.
Furthermore, transgenderism represents to me one of the biggest loopholes in the new sexual ethic of our society. We’re told gays can’t and/or shouldn’t change because people are supposedly born gay, but then the T segment of the LGBT community is encouraged to do everything–therapy, drugs, surgery–to change the way they truly were born.
Anywho; I could get into the whole why-I-believe-in-male-and-female thing, but that’s a whole new post.
The piece as a whole is an outpouring of how he believes he could of ended up transgender — it reads as another Argument from Spurious Similarity. But beyond that, he seems to indicate a belief in sex dichotomy determined by biological forces.
Ensley’s faith in a two-sex dichotomy is shared with other religious conservatives. As a recent example, Sonja Dalton on the Americans For Truth about Homosexuals website responded to the San Francisco Chronicle’s Shaking up transgender assumptions with her piece Shaking Up Gender Assumptions — Destroying Teenagers.
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