THERE used to be a time when lefties regarded the church in all its forms as an enemy of freedom. In some of the bigger civil upheavals of the past century, Spain in the 1930s, France and Mexico in the late '60s, left-wing activists went so far as to physically attack the clergy.
Today, the Left is more at risk of being rendered obsolete by the churches, which conspired this week to ensure that as the Group of 20 summit got under way in London, God should crash the party.
The God we saw in London this week was a much more supreme version of the supreme being most of us know. Not the kindly old white-bearded guy but an activist and thinker, a can-do, Keynesian God who believes that governments must play an interventionist role in the event of market failure. A God who regards climate change as the greatest moral challenge facing our generation, to quote St Kevin of Nambour, and wants us all to sign up to an emissions trading scheme.
Ahead of the G20 meeting most people would have assumed that the biggest lunatics would be the ones out on the street trying to set fire to Burger King, Laura Ashley and other examples of capitalism at its most sinister. But the anarcho-syndicalists and deep ecologists were out-weirded hands-down by the clergy.
In welcoming our Prime Minister to St Paul's Cathedral, Bishop of London Richard Chartres added a new ritual to the liturgy: not the jangling of the incense but the blowing of smoke up the arse.
"It would not be too strong to say the election of Kevin Rudd constituted something of an Obama moment for that country," he said.
It's hard to fathom how the vicar drew such a parallel, although it should be remembered that this is the same bloke who wrote in The Times about the liberating powers of being retrenched and how "getting off the treadmill" can be good for the soul.
In fairness, it may have been the similarities between Rudd and Barack Obama's victory speeches that confused him.
You'd remember Rudd saying: "We have put before the Australian people a plan, it's our agenda for work, and you know something? Everything I have said through this election campaign and in the year leading up to it is our agenda for work", in much the same way that Obama said: "Tonight we proved once more that the true strength of our nation comes not from the might of our arms or the scale of our wealth but from the enduring power of our ideals: democracy, liberty, opportunity and unyielding hope."
The Bishop of London was just the warm-up act. The star of the show was our very own George Browning, the former bishop of Canberra and Goulburn, who tastefully decided that a service in memory of the 173 people who died in the Victorian bushfires was the ideal spot for a free lecture on climate change. "We dare not contemplate a future without learning the lessons this experience has taught us," he said.
Browning didn't expand on the carbon footprint caused by the mileage of his Canberra-Sydney-Singapore-London-Singapore-Sydney-Canberra homily, as he was too busy making mileage out of our greatest natural disaster.
It was audacity in the highest to deign to speak for the families of the dead, many of whom would not blame the disaster on climate change at all. Some of them might argue that it was more the result of staunch climate change adherents in local government who prevented land and home owners from cutting down trees.
Taste aside, the more fundamental point is whether a clergyman who makes a living talking fantasy has any standing to hold forth on the most complicated scientific question of our time.
During the past year that great empiricist George Pell, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney, has written several columns saying he's yet to be convinced by the science on climate change. Now we have the likes of Browning at the other end of the spectrum.
Both men also believe that it's possible to come back from the dead.
Maybe I should get the Bible out and have another flick-through, but I'm struggling to remember the passage about climate change, either for or against, unless it's referred to obliquely in Revelation along with that stuff about the seven-horned beast that will arrive shortly before The Rapture.
I can't recall the section on financial regulation or monetary policy either, a problem not shared by the 32-member delegation of vicars, mullahs, rabbis and other holy men whose G20 communique just may solve the global financial crisis.
It went beyond the generic and vaguely admirable anti-greed stuff that underpins allreligions and instead offered precise suggestions to "restore that lost sense of balance between the requirements of market mechanisms that help deliver increased prosperity and the moral equivalent to safeguard human dignity".
Sounds like God's backing the bailout, then. Maybe Kev sent him a $900 cheque, too; if dead people and prisoners got them, there's no reason deities should miss out.
A day ahead of the communique, the Pope upped the ante by urging Gordon Brown to embrace an ethical financial system and to ensure that developed nations did not wind back on their aid budgets as a proportion of gross domestic product, "especially for Africa and for less developed countries elsewhere".
It was the Pope's first bit of assistance to Africa since his helpful observation to its vastly uneducated, highly religious poor last month that condoms only make AIDS worse, a bit like the old Methodist warning that sex should be avoided as it can lead to dancing.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Climate changers into wholly whine
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Cosmetic Surgery Gone Wrong!!! B
Blog Readers!!! here are some cases i found over the internet, all sound sad, but its the truth, there ARE risks involved in cosmetic surgeries....
I got my Nose operated, not just because esthetical reasons, but also because of my sinuses and ease nose Breathing. But something went wrong- I can feel it while I am breathing through nose. What should I do? Should I demand reparation of nose?
A woman had breast-reduction operation. After the procedure she was in constant pain due to a gaping hole inside her left breast. She suffered from what is called "wound breakdown". She has managed to recover after five months, but is physically and emotionally scarred by the experience. One other Plastic surgeon said that he spends nearly 60% of his time operating on patients who are dissatisfied with previous cosmetic surgery. I am not sure who to blame, unskilled surgeons? Promises like "lunchtime lift", "no bruising" and "no swelling" are unreal; these operations are in fact exceptionally complicated. I’ve heard for another case that went wrong where the woman ended up with serious burns after a laser resurfacing procedure. I personally think that it is the doctor's duty to ensure the patient understands the risks of all procedures.
hi my name is maxine and i had breast surgery (reduction) it went wrong i had a hole apear in my left breast wich resulted in me loosing my nipples and some of my breast .this is the worse thing thats ever happend to me. im sueing the hospital for this.
Ok, Courtney, I thought we had already worked it out that 'plump' lips do not look good on you. Stop it now! Lip collagen is no substitute for good self esteem.
What genius in Clay Aiken's entourage decided that plumper lips would make him look more masculine? Whomever they are, they should be fired. Clay looked more manly when he started out than he does now. The shag haircut, the glass, heavy layer of foundation, and plumped up lips make him look like someone testing the waters before they decide to get a sex change.
I had my Gallbladder removed laparoscopically 2 1/2 weeks ago. The day after surgery I noticed my right leg was numb around my Knee and part of my thigh. I am still having problems with it that seems to be getting increasingly worse. I called my surgeon's office and he said that it's not from the surgery but probably from sleeping on my back. This may be true being I don't normally sleep on my back, but now that I can sleep on my side again, why is it still numb? Nothing seems to help it. Has anyone else had this problem?
I had open Heart Surgery for an aortic valve replacement 7 months ago. It seems like my sternum is growing and is protruding. My lower chest is very sensitive to the touch. My chest get irritated when I exercise and bothers me quite a bit for a few days then subsides some. It hurts sometimes when I cross my arms over my chest. It hurts sometimes when I bend forward. What's the sternum made of, and can it grow? Can what seeing be scar tissue from the large incision made in my chest for the heart surgery?
Well reading all those cases, i don't think you'd just dive into the pool without knowing anything, before having one you must know about the aftereffects and procedures, individual cases are different so please dont make your decisions seeing other cases....
Breast Implants and Augmentation
Breast Implants and Augmentation
From a very early age, women are subjected to ideals regarding the size and shape of their breasts. Modern media – glossy magazines and movies - tell us how big and what shape they should be. Many women consider and eventually have breast implants in order to conform to these opinions but while there are advantages to having this done there are still some concerns and many questions that need answering.
Not all cosmetic surgery is carried out on women who simply want bigger breasts. Many face psychological problems because the size or shape of each breast is different. Breast cancer sufferers consider breast-rebuilding treatment to try and get their lives back on track.
Gone are the days where the only surgical procedure available for women was breast enlargements. There are numerous surgical procedures for various areas of the body although the breasts remain a firm favourite for women. You can now have breast augmentation, breast reconstruction, breast implants, a breast lift and a breast reduction.
You should always consider every view and get the full facts before you consider any surgery, least of all cosmetic surgery.
For most forms of breast implants a small incision of approximately 1.5 inches is made in the fold under the breast, around the areola or in the underarm. For saline implants, a pocket is then created and the implant inserted. Once inserted the implant is then inflated with the saline solution.
More information about the surgery.
The procedure itself usually takes between an hour and two hours and dressing and bandaging is worn for the proceeding 24 to 48 hours. After this a support bra is worn for around 3 weeks although patients can normally be up and moving within 24 hours of the operation. It is advised that strenuous activity and heavy lifting should be avoided for about a month after surgery.
You will suffer bruising and swelling around the breasts that should disappear with time, and also a firmness in the breasts that will disappear with time. You will more than likely feel a little discomfort for several days following the procedure; if this discomfort continues you should consult the clinic where you underwent the operation.
What are the possible side effects of breast implant surgery?
Current research shows no heightened risk of systemic disease or breast cancer in patients, however, as with all surgery there are risks attached. Unfavourable scarring may occur leaving nasty marks around the incision area or around the implant. Infection may occur as with any surgery. Bleeding, excessive firmness, rippling, deflation, asymmetry and a change in nipple sensation may also be encountered but breast augmentation has the highest satisfaction rate of any cosmetic surgery.
What implants are used?Currently, in the United States, saline implants are used for breast augmentation; these are a silicone rubber shell filled with saline (salt water) during surgery. They are available in a wide choice of shapes and sizes. If a patient has significant problems and saline implants would not be the best solution then gel implants may also be used. The advantage of saline implants that if you are one of the unlucky 1% of people who’s implants deflate, the body absorbs the salt-water solution and the implant deflates at a rate that means the body can cope with the amount of salt water being absorbed.
How much will breast augmentation cost?
Obviously this will differ dependant on exactly what procedure you want, the incision type your require and where you have the procedure done. It is obviously not advised to plump for the cheapest option as this may lead to using an inefficient surgeon and complications with the procedure. As a very rough guide you can expect to pay between $4000 and $10000 for breast augmentation. There are probably cheaper and more expensive options available, but I wouldn’t advise either. The price you pay also takes into account the availability of plastic surgeons in that area and the qualifications and expertise of the potential surgeon. If you are certain you want breast implants but feel that the price is a little too high for your budget, you will be pleased to hear that many surgeons will offer credit agreements to spread the cost over time. You should always be very careful when picking a clinic or surgeon. Make sure they are professionally certified and be aware that this is a prime example of you get what you pay for; the price you pay is usually indicative of the qualifications, experience and expertise of your surgeon. Do not be afraid to ask your surgeon for testimonials from satisfied clients; any professional worth his salt will be able to supply them and will be only to pleased to do so. At the end of the day, you must have confidence in your surgeon. And the only way to achieve that, is to do your research.
Breast Implant and Augmentation Photos
Here are some pictures of Breast Implant and Augmentation:
Case 1: Six month result Transaxillary Sub - pectoral Augmentation Mammaplasty with 375cc smooth saline implants in a 33 year old woman with chest wall and breast size asymmetry. This achieved large "C" to "D" cup size with no visible scars.
Age: 33 Ht: 5'7" Wt: 130 lbs. Implants: Mentor Type: Smooth Saline Volume: 375cc Size: 36C/D
Case 2: At right are pre-op and 6 week post-op photos of a 24 year old woman with slight asymmetry. At six weeks, there is still some early fullness of the upper breast which will fade with time, as the skin and muscle stretches, and the implants settle into position. Implant volumes of 350cc right, and 325cc left were used to improve volume symmetry. The next photos below show this patient's axillary scars.
Age: 24 Ht: 5'5" Wt: 125 lbs. Implants: Mentor Type: Smooth Saline Volume: 325/350cc Size: 34D
Trans - Axillary Breast Augmentation. Right and left axillary views at 6wks show almost complete disappearance of the scars in the natural folds beneath the arms.
Case 3: 31-year old woman 3 months after Trans-axillary Breast Augmentation. A "D" cup size was achieved with 425cc saline breast implants. This patient's axillary incision scars are shown at the top of the next page.
Age: 31 Ht: 5'4" Wt: 120 lbs Implants: Mentor Type: Smooth Saline Volume: 425cc Size: 34D
Case 4: Results at 7 years after Trans-axillary breast augmentation in a 19 year old woman shows stability of the sub-muscular result with none of the long-term sag which tends to occur with implants above the muscle.
Age: 19 (at surgery) Ht: 5'6" Wt: 125 lbs Implants: Mentor Type: Textured Silicone Volume: 350cc Size: 34C
Case 5: Six week post-op Augmentation result in a 43 year old woman with loss of volume after 2 pregnancies. Implants are 375cc smooth saline -filled placed via the Trans-axillary sub-muscular mammaplasty technique.
Age: 43 Ht: 5'3 Wt: 123 lbs Implants: Mentor Type: Smooth Saline Volume: 375cc Size: 34D
Benifits & Risks of Cosmetic Surgery
Both physically and emotionally, there are a lot of benifits of cosmetic surgery. You will not only look and feel younger, thinner, and prettier, but your self-esteem will skyrocket as well. Patients very often discover that they are more outgoing, more personable, and more confident.
Procedures like liposuction and breast reduction can greatly enhance your life. People who have had these procedures find themselves more physically active and much healthier than they ever would have imagined.
Individuals who undergo cosmetic surgery find themselves emotionally more confident. Patients are no longer self conscious about their physical defects. You can focus on living your life instead of worrying about the way others are looking at you.
The Risks of Cosmetic Surgery
Cosmetic surgery, like any procedure, carries with it some degree of risk. Complications are rare, but they do occur. Modern procedures have greatly diminished most risks. However, these complications might be enhanced if you have certain health conditions, such as diabetes.
In order to curtail these risks, it is important that you choose an experienced plastic surgeon that has a proven track record of success with minimal complications. The surgeons we have chosen to be a part of The Cosmetic Surgery Directory are committed to using the latest technology to ensure your safety. Some cases can be found here which explain the risks that might occur from a cosmetic surgery procedure.
The Benefits of Cosmetic Surgery far outweigh the Risks!
sex change pictures and Sex Change Surgery Before and After
Beginnings of Sex Reassignment Surgery in Japan
By Takamatsu Ako, M.D., Harashina Takao, M.D., Inoue Yoshiharu, M.D., Kinoshita Katsuyuki, M.D.**, Ishihara Osamu, M.D.**, Uchijima Yutaka, M.D.* **Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Gynecology*, Urology**, Saitama Medical Center, Saitama Medical School, Japan
Abstract
The first sex reassignment surgery (SRS) performed officially in Japan - for a female-to-male (FtM) person in 1998 and for a male-to-female (MtF) person in 1999 - are reported. For the FtM, two-stage conversion was applied. In the first operation, salpingo-oophorectomy, hysterectomy, colpectomy, metoidioplasty, and mastectomy were performed. A free flap phalloplasty with the deltoid flap is planned as the second stage. For the MtF, one-stage neovaginoplasty was performed by penile skin inversion technique with sensate pedicled neoclitoplasty.
Introduction
Japan, which is considered to be one of the world's most advanced countries in terms of its economy, technology, industry, and medicine, has long been in the dark ages regarding people who suffer from gender dysphoria. In July 1996, the Ethics Committee of Saitama Medical School submitted a report, at our request, on surgical treatment for transsexual patients. The report acknowledges that transsexualism exists and that treating transsexual patients can be regarded as a justifiable medical activity. The report was made public by mass media. In 1997, the medical guidelines for transgender persons were issued by the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology, with some modifications of the Standards of Care of the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association. We organized a medical team composed of psychiatrists, a sexologist, endocrinologists, gynecologists, urologists, and plastic surgeons.
This is a report of the first sex reassignment surgeries (SRSs) officially performed in Japan: one for a FtM person in 1998 and one for a MtF person in 1999. Diagnosis, preparatory psychotherapy, and hormonal therapy were carried out according to the above-mentioned guidelines.
Methods
SRS for a Female-to-Male Transsexual
In the first operation, regarded as the first stage in the two-stage conversion, bilateral salpingo-oophorectomy, hysterectomy, colpectomy, metoidioplasty, and mastectomy were performed.
First, the gynecologists performed a transabdominal oophoro-hysterectomy. Then they began to elevate the anterior vaginal flap through the abdominal approach. The elevation was completed transvaginally, just to the dorsal part of the urethral orifice, by plastic surgeons. The vaginal mucosa was resected, and colpocleisis was accomplished. After the abdominal wall was closed, we performed a metoidioplasty, as advocated by Hage (1996). By resection of the chordee, the clitoral shaft was released and abdominally advanced. The neourethra was constructed by suturing the vestibular skin, the vaginal mucosal flap and the labial flap around the urethral catheter in a watertight fashion (Figures 1, 2). A suprapubic cystostomy was performed and the urethral catheter was removed.
Figure 1 Figure 2
Figure 3 Figure 4
We are planning a free-flap phalloplasty as the second stage of the conversion. The patient desires the phalloplasty but at this time cannot afford the necessary fee which will amount to 2,500,000 yen (US$25,000).
SRS for a Male-to-Female Transsexual
A one-stage operation was performed in June 1999. The operative technique involved the following procedures: bilateral orchiectomy and penectomy followed by vaginoplasty, clitoroplasty, and vulvoplasty.
For the vaginoplasty, we employed a modification of the abdominally pedicled penile-skin-inversion technique added by a triangular perineal skin flap (Karim, Hage and Mulder, 1996). A dorsally based triangular perineal flap measuring about 10 cm long and 4 cm wide was used to line the posterior wall of the neovagina and widen the introitus (Figure 5). The testes were isolated and then removed with a double ligation of the spermatic cord at the level of the external inguinal rings. The skin of the penile shaft was mobilized from the corpora up to the level of the corona. A circumcising skin incision was made at the corona, completely denuding the penis of its skin and leaving the glans penis attached to the corpora (Figure 6).
Figure 5 Figure 6
The dorsal part of the glans penis was used as a clitoris. Sensate pedicled neoclitoplasty using the reduced glans, which remained attached to its dorsal penile neurovascular pedicle, was performed (Brown, 1976). The corpora cavernosa were resected to prevent postoperative pain due to erection of the remaining corpora tissues.
A neovaginal cavity was created by dissection between the two layers of Denonvillier's fascia using a laparoscope placed in the abdomen as a guide. The created neovaginal depth was approximately 10 cm.
The lower abdominal skin flap was dissected to about the level of the umbilicus, and this advancement of the flap in the inferior and posterior direction made it possible for the base of the penile skin tube to overlie the introitus of the neovagina. The perineal triangular flap was sutured to the posterior wall of the penile skin tube and the widened tube was then inverted to line the neovaginal cavity. The skin flap was incised in the middle and the urethra was brought out through the buttonhole and amputated at the urogenital diaphragm level. The urethral stump and neurovascular pedicled neoclitoris were sutured to the skin with interrupted sutures. A soft, individually selected urethane mold, placed in a condom, was inserted into the neovagina, and the mold was securely sutured to the perineum to prevent prolapse (Figure 7).
Figure 7 Figure 8
The estimated blood loss was 760 ml and no transfusion was necessary. The postoperative course was uneventful and the patient was discharged on the eighth postoperative day. She wore the dilating stent every day for 3 months postoperatively; nevertheless, the neovagina decreased in depth to 6 cm and in diameter to two fingers' width. The neoclitoris was found to have returned to a normal level of sensation (Figure 8). The patient has returned to her previous occupation.
Discussion
We believe that most FtM transsexuals desire closure of the vagina. However, we recognize the different view of some surgeons who consider the risk benefit to be rather high. Their reasoning is that most patients are not necessarily aware of the presence of the vagina because of decreased discharge after hysterectomy and atrophied mucosa due to long-term hormone therapy. We have found vaginectomy to be technically difficult and bloody and autotransfusion has a valuable place here. We have also found the vaginas of the Japanese FtM transsexuals we have examined to be very narrow compared with those we have observed elsewhere, so we have chosen to do transabdominal hysterectomies. The other advantage of the transabdominal approach is that the partial elevation of a sufficient size of the anterior vaginal flap and vaginectomy can be carried out from above, under direct vision (Figure 9).
Figure 9 Figure 10
Figure 11 In SRS for MtF transsexuals, we employed a laparoscope to assist in dissecting the vaginal cavity. Its light can help avoid injury to the prostate and rectum and can provide a direct view of the vaginal cavity up to the peritoneum.
We are planning a free-flap phalloplasty as the second stage of the FtM SRS (Figure 10). We have experienced 13 cases of deltoid flap and 5 cases of forearm-flap phalloplasties in non- transsexual patients during the past 15 years (Figure 11). These techniques always result in extensive scarring of the donor area. Our first choice of donor site for phallic construction is the deltoid flap (Harashina et al.,1990) because it results in less morbidity in the donor site, is a true sensory flap, has hairless skin, and is less likely to result in atrophy of the neophallus. However, this technique may be technically more difficult than that with the forearm flap, and it may be impossible to make a roll on obese patients. We think the deltoid flap is especially suitable for Japanese FtM patients because they generally are not obese. In fact, they usually try to reduce their weight so that they will not be regarded as females.
At the time of writing this paper, we have performed six SRSs: one for MtF and five for FtM. Four of the five FtM patients had already undergone mastectomies elsewhere. The SRSs were performed at the Gender Clinic of Saitama Medical Center, which was the only provider of transgender-specific health services in Japan as of March 2000. In total, over 400 clients have visited our clinic since the first patient arrived in 1992, and about 100 new gender dysphoric clients have been seen each year. Sixty percent of them seek SRS. While there are many candidates, we take our time before performing surgery because there are very few psychiatric specialists in this field in Japan and we must apply for permission from our ethics committee in each case.
Conclusion
The first SRS operation in Japan was affirmatively reported all over the country and there was actually no public criticism. The operation was an historic turning point for the proper understanding of Gender Identity Disorder in our country.
We are just on the starting line. Many issues remain to be resolved in promoting the welfare of our patients. Whereas public interest is steadily increasing and some acknowledgement of SRS seems to have become established, there is still no policy regarding health insurance and legislation for those who have undergone the procedure. SRS is not covered by National Health Insurance, and postoperative persons cannot yet change any of their documents. Our team is still the only practising gender surgery team in Japan, although two other teams are now being organized. Despite these difficulties, the role of SRS, performed justifiably, is becoming more prominent in the treatment of transsexualism in Japan.
References
Brown, J. (1976) Creation of a functional clitoris and aesthetically pleasing introitus in sex conversion. In Marchac, D. (Ed.), Transactions of the 6th International Congress of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery. Paris: Masson, pp. 654-655.
Davidson, B. A. (1979) Concentric circle operation for massive gynecomastia to excise the redundant skin. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 63: 350-354.
Hage, J.J. (1996) Metoidioplasty: An alternative phalloplasty technique in transsexuals. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 97: 161-167.
Hage, J. J., Bloem J.J.A.M. (1995) Chest wall contouring for female-to-male transsexuals: Amsterdam experience. Annals of Plastic Surgery, 34: 59-66.
Harashina T., Inoue T., et al. (1990) Reconstruction of penis with free deltoid flap. British Journal of Plastic Surgery, 43: 217-222.
Karim, R.B., Hage J. J., and Mulder J. W. (1996) Neovaginoplasty in male transsexuals: Review of surgical techniques and recommendations regarding their eligibility. Annals of Plastic Surgery, 37: 669-675.
Pitanguy, I. (1966) Transareolar incision for gynecomastia. Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, 38: 414-419.
Acknowledgement
We are grateful to Doctor Joris J. Hage in the Netherlands for his valuable help in accomplishing this task.
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What Is Sex Change Surgery?
Sex change surgery which is technically known as sex reassignment surgery is a procedure that changes the genital organs from one gender to another.
Why Is It Performed?
There are two main reasons for performing the operation.
NEWBORNS WITH INTER-SEX DEFORMITIES.
These deformities represent intermediate stages between the primordial female genitals and the change into male ones caused by male hormone stimulation and one sex or the other needs to be assigned quite early on.
THE PATIENT DESIRES THE CHANGE
Occasionally, men or women believe that they are physically a different sex to the one that they are mentally and emotionally and this discord is sometimes so profound they wish to be surgically changed.
Technical considerations favour conversion from a male to a female and newborns with ambiguous organs will almost always be changed to the female sex except in the case where the penis is at least one inch long. Regardless of their chromosomes they are much more likely to be become socially well adjusted females even they will not be able to have children that they would be well adjusted males.
Safety Measures
Sexual identity is probably the most profound characteristic that humans have and if a change needs to be made then it is highly preferable that it is done as soon as possible after birth.
By the time most adults decide on surgery they have lived for many years with dissonant identities and according to studies the average age is 29 years old. Even after having lived with the said dissonance for such an extended period of time the person may not be fully aware of the implications of changing their sex and in depth psychological counselling should both precede and follow all procedures.
Additionally it is preferable that the patient will have the support of family and friends after the surgery to help him or her to adjust to the new identity.
The Sugery
MALE TO FEMALE
Changing the male to female anatomy requires removal of the penis and some reshaping of the genital tissue in order to make it appear more female and also the structuring of a vagina. A vagina can generally be successfully formed from with either a skin graft or an isolated loop of intestine.
Following the surgery, female hormones (estrogen) are given to reshape the body's contours and to help grow satisfactory breasts.
FEMALE TO MALE
Due to the difficulty of building a functioning penis from the much smaller clitoral tissue available in the female genitals, female to male surgery has been far less successful and penis construction is not attempted until at least a year after the preliminary surgery to remove the female organs.
Studies suggest that around a third of patients would not undergo the surgery again even though they were all pleased with the change of sex. In addition to the genital organs the breasts also need to be surgically altered to give a more masculine appearance and this can be done quite successfully.
Orgasm?
An orgasm, or at least a reasonable degree of erogenous sensitivity can be experienced by most patients after the surgery.
What Are The Risks
As with all surgery there are the risks of infection and bleeding and the most common complication following male to female surgery is a narrowing of the new vagina.
As this is an irreversible procedure two letters of therapy clearance are required. One therapist (a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker or sexologist) must have a doctoral degree and one of the two therapists must have known the patient for an extended period of time.
These people who go through sex change operations obviously have very brave, courageous and strong spirits. I wish them all the best and a life filled with lots of love and happiness.
I JUST HAVE TO SAY THAT AFTER LOOKING AT THE PICTURES OF BEFORE AND AFTER SEX CHANGE OPERATIONS, THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE THEM ARE VERY VERY VERY BRAVE BECUASE THAT LOOKED LIKE TERRIBLE PAIN.
oh my god!!!
OWWWW
I Think that those women who have gone through their SRS are very brave and inspiring to me. Transexual women are special people in my heart.
This is extremely unnatural and it is an abomination unto God!!! You might be able to snip and clip your genitals but that won't change your DNA and who you will always be because of that!!!
For the bible thumper above. What about intersex conditions where XX men and XY women exist? What about XY women with Swyer's Syndrome who can bear, with the help of hormones and donated ova, children. They do have a uterus. How about males with XXXXY chromosomes. As far as I can surmise the bible is silent on people born with the above conditions. Remember...when you point the finger at someone else maybe you should check out your own closet first. Jesus did say "...why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye?"
If a procedure will make someone feel whole and complete with themselves and finally happy - a few months of pain and a surgery is nothing in comparison to living an unhappy life in a body that is not yours. If it's what they desire, by all means it's something they should pursue after it is researched and well thought out. Best of luck to all who are contemplating this issue.
This is not right..God put you on this planet as a man or women for a reason...even if you dont feel right...
what makes some of you think you can speak for God?
the same God that, according to your Bible, allowed his 'chosen' people to have sex with their own daughters in order to have children?
didn't Jesus' own family line have a prostitute?
how dare you judge someone!
how dare you speak for a God who loves unconditionally!
go preach to rapists!
First of all... What are you bible thumpers doing on this site to begin with? Second... I believe in evulution, which means I believe in the development of mankind through billions of years of species. Our chromosomes tend to be a bit "Off" sometimes. In such cases there are very few options from which to choose from. Live a lie on the outside, or be true to your inside.
My heart goes out to all the people with problems like this. Keep your strength. May God bless you.
Steve
I want my brother Blair in Illinois to have this surgery. I think he'd be happier as woman than a man. But he disagrees. Is there a way to have him legally forced to undergo this surgery?
I agree and I think God made you how you are for a reason, and remember once u go thru with this u can never have children
UUUUUMMMM OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!
Seriously....I think all those people who decide for a sex change are all sick. I mean, why don't they jump of a cliff. Where is all that crap gonna end?? I don't believe in it when men say "I feel like a woman" and women say "I feel like a man". Come one, what do they know?? If he is a MAN r she is a WOMAN...how will they know how a real man or a real woman feel?? They can't.
I also think that most of them are just afraid to confess that they are homosexual...they think "God, I am gay...BUT HEY...if I change my sex I'll be straight"
My opinion is that those fake men and women will never be real. AND...you can even tell they are fake. Even though the peole from Asia look pretty good after their surgery...You can still tell. Cause they just act super gay. They are trying too hard.
And just think about how their parents would feel. If my child comes to me one day and says "hey mom, I'm gay" It'll be ok with me. BUT...if he or she would cme and say "Hey mom, I'm about to get a sex change" They are gonna be dead for me.
I do.
O.K. after carefully reviewing my comments three times, I've finally decided to stick with one.
To the March 28th anonymous poster, WOW! You're oblivious to your own hypocrisy. You've expressed a personal opinion, that's fine, but to insist that they don't know what it truly feels to be the opposite sex when you yourself hasn't the faintest clue as to what it feels like to be them. I often see this hypocrisy as a result from the battle between ego and being uneducated and uncultured. You don't even know if you'd jump off a cliff if you were in their skin, minds, in their hearts.
Think objectively, and critically before you act because your words are like toxic venom to the minds behind the eyes of those who read through these forums with open hearts. Oh, and since I'm approaching the topic of hypocrisy here, to all you God heads out there...I would like to suggest studying as many religions as you can possibly muster up before casting judgment.
The institutions from which many base their beliefs have very deep historical roots in the mechanics of worshiping under a certain religion within a community or family. In other words, these beliefs are nothing more than a systematic approach to teaching morals and values and are not intended to be taken beyond face value.
Bear in mind, the distortions of biblical stories that were designed to instill fear in people as well as aid in the political gains of the religious sector. Also, consider studying the history of western civilization. Throughout history, anytime a government ignores the importance of remaining secular, trivial problems will arise because not everybody shares the same viewpoints. It's natural for human beings to question everything in life, even if it means questioning our own sex.
Don't you think it's long past the time that we start evolving as a more compassionate species?
I do, and I'm not afraid to be anonymous about it.
Thanks Eric, I appreciate your comment, just read it and felt good. Cheers. Ana.
Brave people,It seems to hurt a lot!..and honey no you can not force your brother Blair to have a sex change even legally that's just silliness!It's a persons own decision!But it's nice of you to be open minded,but I'm sure he thinks he's fine the way he is,if not he'd open up to you!
good luck to all who decide to do this procedure!
Just want to say I hope those of you getting sex-changes find what your looking for. Best wishes.
And for the @holes who just say hurtfull things and try to back it with "god" is just cowardous. Your no better than terrorist, with their suicide bombings, killing random people in the name of god. Such ignorance is rewarded with more hurt and hate. Im sure if there realy is a god, this is what he would've wanted right?
Much love Rob
DIFFERENT IS DEFINATELY NORMAL THESE DAYS. DO WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. AND FOR THE PEOPLE WHO CANT UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE FEEL LIKE THEYRE TRAPPED IN ANOTHER BODY THEN YOUVE LIVED A VERY SHELTERED LIFE. I AM FROM A VERY SMALL TOWN AND I HAVE KNOWN PEOPLE LIKE THIS AND THERES NOTHING WRONG WITH THEM THEY ARE VERY NORMAL. SO STOP BEING A CRITIC. IF YOU DONT BELIEVE IN IT DONT GOOGLE IT,DONT LOOK IT UP. GO FIND SOMETHING TO MAKE YOU HAPPY.LIVE YOUR OWN LIFE AS THESE PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO DO...THNX
THE WORLD IS CHANGING,SO JUST LET IT BE. LIVE YOUR "OWN" LIFE. AND KEEP YOUR NOSES OUT OF EVERY ONE ELSES BUSINESS... :)
For all the Bible bearers that feel the need to comment on someone else's misfortune (because no one likes feeling uncomfortable with themselves) may I remind you that no where in the bible does it say you can't cross the line between the genders. And by claiming he has you are breaking one of the 10 commandments. "Thou shalt not create God in thine own image". God is the only one who can judge us. So let him do so.
People have a right to be loved, feel comfortable within themselves and not be judged. What are all of the religous folk doing on this website anyway???? Maybe they need to be a little more honest with themselves rather then be juding others.To anyone considering this type of operation - all the power to you!
Oh MY GOSH<>
i think sex change operations is disgusting and wrong if god wanted you to be a boy or girl that is what your supposed to be the poor children growing up with these freaks dont have a chance to ever be normal i am totally disgusted!!!!!
Hell yes, Eric. Amen.
discusting! Brave you call it? i'd call it mental illness. That is not brave to go throgh the operation. They inflicted that pain on themselves. This is discusting in other countrys you get beaten or killed for homosexuality. This is so agianst what bible says, i just wish God has mercy on them and for all the other people who agree with this, being brain washed by this sin!!
God bless those who are able to use the gift of medical science to fully embrace their true self!
I was just browsing plastic surgery sites, and stumbled on this page.
What these people do is an amazing thing. It just shows how emotions and feeling can be transformed into a physical thing.
Although I have heard that most sex changes never go all the way, especially with m2f operations, because the loss of the penis can lead to so many mental problems and even lead to suicide and things similar like self harming.
Anyone that can tell me this, I would very appreciative, as its for my socialogy essay :)
A lot of my respect goes out to these people for the pain and they go through, emotionally and physically.
I googled this because i was bored and i needed a good laugh. To all you preachy assholes, get off your pedestals and listen to me cause i know the way. First of all i hate gay people and i know all of you do too.....i mean seriously....THERE GAY, whats to like anyways. If they want to turn there package into raw meat so they can take it in two holes instead of one whatev, but we all know they do it because they have tiny peckers and are self conscious so they think, "eh....i guess i could give a vagina a try."
541 ...
. I appreciate a good debate... NOT I'm gonna rip you a new one. not surgically... figuratively. sickos...
And the women... don't even get me started. oh you won't me started? Oh, alright. We ALL know they do it because they are way to gnar to get laid the NORM way. so they are just like, "eh, I guess i could give a penis a try" and plus, these days, all lesbians are just plain EWWWW. Except the fake ones, on the internet, who are paid large sums of moneys, thanks to my many subscriptions to multiple porn sites. I have no problem with hott lesbos, but to you dikes, take off your hiking boots, grow your hair, get a dick, and get poon that way. seriously.
And to all you , people who are going to tell me to find something better to do......NO pissing faggots and lesbos off is way more fun then TV or anything else i could be doing so eat a dick....wait, or a vagina.....wait i guess there all the same now aren't they according to your little queer club. Oh ya and the people who say they are brave, fuck you. going into a cave and fighting a dragon is brave, not chopping your dick into spaghetti.
And to all the faggot assholes and lesbian dikes you should all hop in the delorian with doc brown and go back in time and fuck each other. because now you can, with your wittle fake dicks and wittle gross hairy cooters you won't even be able to tell who's a dude, or a chick... with a dick.
and to the bible thumpers...thats a cool name. nobody has a name that has THUMPERS in it, thats a good cause. think about it, black thumpers, whit thumpers, thats like the name of porn sites... that i'm subscribed to. but not you, your name stands for something. right on... rock out with your cock out. careful though, they be snipping it off these days
so if you would like to hear more of what i have to say, or just have a problem with me, and my amazing, but ever so right beliefs. CALL ME at
Brandon and Scott....Queer haters of the northwest
wow man that shit is fucked up
I was going to post something extremely well written and long here to retaliate against all the people who are saying things that, of course, do not belong here, mostly by said bible thumpers.
Then I thought about it, and realized it wasn't worth my time to argue with people who have the intellectual capacity of a rock.[As my sister so lovingly says]
Being transsexual is more than you could ever imagine. It is so much you will never understand. You know nothing of what these people go through.
Next time you decide to put in your little tid-bit about "God" or whatnot, think about what the situation is first. Then again, most of you don't care do you? All you care about is what your God wants, or I should say, what you THINK God wants.
Also, apologies to all I may or may not have offended with this, other than those meant to be offended.
[I myself look up to those who get the surgery they need to become who they truely are, the ones able to become complete and live as they wish. Anyone who can go through with the entire process, all of it, despite the pain, despite the cost... is a hero to me.
If only I could go through with it. Maybe some day I will be able to, and finally be able to live as the 'big brother' I want to be to my sister...]
Yeah. go ahead and bash me, pricks. Your comments make me laugh.
[I am thankful that this blog was posted. It has shown me a lot, and taught me things I had neglected to learn. So, thank you.]
This is an abomination to humanity. It's not natural. If these people think it's natural then they have to have something out of whack, as in, something along the lines of what makes someone retarded. But hey, go ahead and get it. Usually the group of people who would get a sex change tend to stay in that area of society, so, yeah, stay there... And for the record, people who say this is an abomination to God can kiss my ass. Religion is a side effect of human nature; the need to have something to hold onto, or something to justify what we think we perceive, or to justify what we don't understand. I would say being transsexual could be considered a side effect of human nature, that rare anomaly that just happens by chance, or a "glitch in the system," or something to that nature, but you don't see within any other species (by choice). So you guys can go fucking fuck your fucking selves!!! BITCH!!
The people that go through this and speak about it are brave and courageous. Not because of what they are going through physically or mentally relating to this type of operation, but because of what other people put them through physically and mentally. The so called 'religous' fanatics posting here speak about hypocrisy. Ironic...
Also, most people aren't doing this to change into someone else, they do it to make their bodies match the person they already are, and they should not be faulted for trying to be their true self.
I personally would not do this type of thing, because I am happy with that part of myself, but hope very much that this has allowed someone else to be happy with that part of themselves as well.
To the last poster, who happened to be dead on about religion, I ask how this is an abomination to humanity? These are still people effected by the 'human condition'. Do they have any less of the qualities of a 'human'?
I would reply with the question of compassion, and the lack of it shown by others... wouldn't that make them less 'human'?
no what i think is unnature and sick is the stupid small minded people who just have something negative to say..example the dummy who said just go jump off a cliff people like him need to jump off a cliff my hat gos off to the men and women who is brave enough to deal with the situation instead of killing yourself theres to much of that in the world today..my question to all the negative people out there who the fuck are you to judge anybody i bet there is not one person on this site that worships god 24/7 if not then u to are a sinner i have not read one post to make me believe that there is a angel here plus yo ass on this site then looking at the pics like the people saying ''oh i was browsing the internet and came up on it'' wtf how do you just come up on sex change surgery then click on it my advice to you make it easier on yourself and come out the closet do us all a favor
all you gay sex changing losers are going to hell, not to mention are sick and twisted!! aparently yall arent reading the same Bible i am because it clearly states your body is a sacred temple and you are not to harm or change it in any way.. on top of the fact being a queer is wrong! so ur right, God will judge us all one day!
This might take a minute.Anyone that objects to a persons happiness with suggestions of suicide should be shot.People like this is what's destroying this country.Narrow minded"all about me"way of life.Bible bearers how is sex change hurting your body.You don't die after.Your body isn't in any worse shape than piercing your ears.How many of you have that?Same difference.Instead of wasting your valuable time on this subject how about kids in "OUR" country that don't have anything to eat or a descent place to live.One more thing all of you type in anger so most of your spelling is messed up.Slow down think about what you're saying.Someone might jump off that cliff.Karma has a way of comin' back on you.Or God.
When a person develops vision problems or their eyes were just not good to begin with; do you avoid corrective surgery because "that's the body God gave you". If your child is born with a hole in it's heart or lung or any other birth defect; do you leave it because "that's the body God gave them". When someone is born with webbed fingers or toes it is corrected, not because it's problematic but because we think it's "unnatural". God gave them webbed digits and we say that's not right and fix what "God made" (he could have had plans for them to be Olympic swimmers).
God blessed us with above all else an awareness of self. A self that is capable of glorifying him and celebrating the opportunities he's given us and facing the challenges that will make us stronger.
Transsexual individuals are people who are facing the struggles we all must face just in our own different ways.
Casting stones will not make you feel better. Let these beautiful people be just that and practice true Christ-like behaviour in loving all unconditionally. That's why there's a New Testament. Don't pick and choose unless you're willing to avoid eating shellfish and sacrificing doves during menstruation. (Both suggested practices in Leviticus, look it up.)
Peace to everyone on here, the amazing people fighting for equality or just acceptance and those who are lost and don't know how to overcome their anger.
evolution is the process of nature, not science. You dont need God to know that this procedure is morally wrong. This is one small reason that society in all parts of the world are faltering. what is next, are the guys going to have a rib removed and the girls going to have another one implanted. Its not my place to judge, but there is a reason why we have mental hospitals. The grass isnt always greener on the other side, and everybody has to answer to someone in the end. And to the people who say that those of us who disagree with this proceedure are terrorists, think of something better than a terrorist to compare us too. In no way shape are form are we close to terrorists, there is a big differrance between disagreeing and killing thousands, because of an extremist view. Okay, there is my two pennies.
I'm keeping my penis.
I'm a male-to-female transexual, and I'm disappointed by all the ignorance and rage from these people who seek to impose their hate and ignorance upon others. I've been suffering in silence for my entire life with this feeling eating away at me. These ignorant people don't know what it's like to have your own mind tearing itself apart because your body doesn't match your mind. Though I'm disappointed in them, I also pity them. I'm seeking Gender Reassignment Surgery, and I hope that these people somehow find it in their hearts to accept us.
who cares what everyone says. people should do what they want, as long as it's not harming others. i hope everyone, including transsexuals can learn to rise above this nonsense pointless debates. do what you want. having certain physical traits does not determine if you're a bad, good, or wrong person. live your life how you want to, as long as you aren't causing others emotional or physical harm and suffering. that's what matters most of all. the end.
who cares what everyone says. people should do what they want, as long as it's not harming others. i hope everyone, including transsexuals can learn to rise above this nonsense pointless debates. do what you want. having certain physical traits does not determine if you're a bad, good, or wrong person. live your life how you want to, as long as you aren't causing others emotional or physical harm and suffering. that's what matters most of all. the end.
Agreed, this is a very controversial topic. I remember an episode of South Park when Mr. Garrison had the sex change. He soon realised he couldn't function like a woman because he didn't have the internal anatomy of one. I vividly remember him saying, "that means I'm just a man with a mutilated penis."
I personally think that you have to accept yourself as you are because if you're looking for external validation, you can never be happy. I would be very interested to know the statistics on how many transexuals are happy on the long term with their "quick fix".
I am really sick of so called christians toting the name of god and proclaiming that god will punish those who dare to be different. Let god do the judging, and get off your high horse.. If you are really a christian, read your bible, and get the "facts" right: Jesus preached compassion and acceptance for ALL people, especially those who were different and rejected by society. He rebelled against the church and tried to improve the lives of everyone. So What would jesus do? Probably laugh at all you christians who are being judgemental, and go hang out with the sincerely nice people, regardless of whether they were transsexuals, gay, whatever. So stop judging, and look deep into yourself as to why you feel you must attack others for their beliefs.. are you that insecure??
And anyway, as it has been pointed out, this is not a forum for your hate, but for those seeking information on sex changes. Sorry for continuing the religious debate but I can't stand uneducated people who make judgements based on NOTHING!
All the advice I can give is love yourself, and do what you think is right. That is all anyone can do.
i belive anybody who hates or bashes transsexual people do so because they are absolutly terrified of there own feelings deep down..if your happy and sucure with yourself and you have nothing to hide,then you wouldnt have time too bash others and
you really wouldnt be full of hate or fear..and thats what transphobia is..hate and fear...fear that whhen they look at a transsexual,they see something that resembles they're own internal,hidden feelings.
1.I do NOT believe in God.
2.I DO respect those who do.
3.God has nothing to do with this.
It is to do with the person themselves and it is THEIR life!
If your so called "God" thought Gay,Lesbian,Bi and trangender/sexual people are sins etc.. then why hasn't he "smighted" us yet fools. After all he is supposedly the creator of us, surely he can create a measly bolt of thunder and strike us down...but OH NO he doesn't!
I hate people who think they have a right to call someone an "Abomination" or "sick", we are who we are, and nothing will change that.
Please THINK about what you say, and if God is real then he should love us all, AND...
APPARENTLY...
God NEVER makes mistakes...so why call us wrong?
I've been to my R.E classes in school, they say GOD IS A JUST JUDGE.
So shutup you Bible bashing morons.
And go to school you pathetic people who go on sites to abuse people!
We are just as normal as you! but we just don't feel secure with the body we were given or the way we are meant to love.
..end...of...!!!
p.s The people who go through surgery are NOT brave...
THEY ARE AMAZING AND COURAGOUS!
love to everyone!
I "stumbled" across this page, as I was originally looking at "cosmetic surgery, before and after photos".
I can hardly believe the comments I have read on here, some very intellectual, but mostly posted by ignorant fools!
I don't believe in any "God", which has gotten me into many arguments in the past, I believe that the bible is just a book, written, changed many times along the way, as a set of rules in which we apparently should live our lives. Believe in it or not, that's every-one's choice, but if you don't, then it doesn't make you a bad person, just not a hypocrate! Why don't you make your own rules, for your own life? I mean, if you're not harming any-one else, what's the big deal?
Any-way, I'm actually perplexed as to how/why, the subject of trans-gender surgery has to come down to a religious debate with most of you people?!
It's not like those people have chosen to be the way they are, I mean, they were born like that, it's not a life-style choice and it's nothing to do with being GAY, OMG, what are you lot like on here?! Ignorant and uneducated!
Why can't people just accept people for what and who they are? At least then, the world would be a much nicer place to be in!
Trans-sexuals live almost all of their lives as a lie, because of societies ignorance and percecution, LIVE and LET LIVE I say and just count your blessings that it wasn't you that happened to be born in the wrong body!
Those people ARE brave, not by going through the physical trauma of these operations, but for trying to put right in their lives what they've always known was not right, when years ago they would've just not had the option.
I'm going to stop now, cos I could go on all evening! My last words are...GO FOR IT and bollocks to all the ignoramuses, there're plenty of them out there, as is obvious, lol!
You know what? I'm tired of all these bible thumpers why are they even here in the first place? I admire these brave people who get this kind of surgery to make themself feel complete. I personally want to get a MTF because i don't feel right, and i've known it for quite awhile. Oh and damn, stop going on about being gay. If someone wants to get a MTF why does that automatically mean they want too be with guys?
I've been talking about it with my g/f recently and she says she'll love me no matter what i look like and if it's something i want she will support me on it. I really wish everyone had someone like that too support them threw something like this.
Best wishes too everyone
تحيةطيبة وبعد انا شاب ارغب في التحول من ذكر الي انثي رغبتي وانا في سن 13 سنة ارجو الرد اني الان في سن 40 سنة ولكن من ينظر لي يقول ان عمري 30سنة بس ارجو قبول طلبي في التحويل ارجو الرد وشكرآ
This is truley a sad commentary on our times and proves exactly how narrow minded an ignorant some people really are. Here you have a fine example of why I have stayed hidden most of my life.To anser a couple of questons. Current statistics show that about 98% of transpeople that have SAS (Sex affermations Surgery) or SRS or what ever you decide to call it are very happy with post op results.I think my favorite, albeit ignorant, comment is... Your just trying to make your life easier (this is in referance to social circumstances). If any of you truley think this way let me say this. I will never truley pass as a woman. I KNOW this. This surgery is purely for me and no one else. This is about my SELF identity, not yours. I have lived most of my life avoiding mirrors because I cannot stand what I see. Yes, I do see a therapist. Not because it's a requirement, but because I still have to deal with very ignorant people, and some that would take matters into their own hands. I know my self esteme is in the dump, but is yours so low that you have to berrate and harass others to feel good about yourself? I am in therapy for dealing with the anxiety associated with dealing with people that have no concept of what it is to be transsexual.For those of you that want to hide behind GOD. You are NOT the judge. Yes you are entitled to you opinion, but don't throw the bible around like it's just another book of law. Fact: Christianity has been the most corrupt and violent religions in the world. Don't want to beleive that statement. Take a look at the Vatican and history. That is all the proof you need. Please people, educate yourself rather than blindly believing what you have been forced to believe. Oh, yes, I am a Christian. And I will answer to my God on judgement day. For now, I have to do what I feel is right.For those of you that have post comments of support. Thank you. For every single one of us, the reason we do this is differant. If you think the surgery looks painful, trying living in a prison that we call our bodies. That is truley pain. Physical pain fade quickly by comparison. It's unfortunate that for so many the the choice is suicide. But consider this. To transition, it takes years of commitment, patience, enduring pain and harrasment, and lots of money. Not all at once, but over time this is costly. I could buy a house for what I am doing, but I will eventually have a permanent home in a body can FINALY live with.Let me leave you with one final comment. Don't attempt to punish, argue or debate with most of these people. They have been raise in ignorance really don't know any better, I just pray that they aren't stupid and can eventually learn. Be content in your opinions and thoughts, as Jesus said, turn the other cheek.Love Kate
I have only one thing to say is that" Everything is made for a reason " I am not going to preach or anything. But a lot of bad things happen, like people born with a handicap and they live with it, people who can never see or hear or walk their hole life but they can not change it and they struggle all their life and try their best to be happy. What are we doing now ? I understand transgender, I am not blaming these people. If I was a transgender I would live with it because this is God's will and I am sure that I was born this way for a reason. Going through these operation and breaking families around you, I consider it selfishness. May be I don't really understand their feelings because I am not a transgender myself but if I have to understand them so I have to understand criminals and never blame them because most of them come from a broken family and they were abused as children. But if we can excuse them so we have to excuse criminals as well because they are sick and they can not do anything about it.
In this case, who should we blame, God? Our Society ? Our family ?
We should only blame ourselves. Every one of us can make a difference.
I think this is Sick !!! We should not change our human nature, we should not mess with our bodies, every body is sacred. I don't know where the world is going, prostitution, drugs, alcohol and the worst sin a person can do: interfering with God's creation. Guys wake up, we're booking our flight to hell. Stop beeing selfish, you might feel awkward and bizarre trapped in a wrong body, just live with it, try to find a solution, conselling, etc.. Don't you do that, it is not worth all the pain, you will always be the person you are supposed to be, you can not give birth and your inside will always be the same, may be they can change the shape of your genitals but they can never change the inner You, the person that God has created.
People do not chose to undergo such surgery on a whim. Neither do people chose their sexual orientation; the rampant homophobia in many societies means gay and lesbian peopel are frequently targets for moronic thugs. And yes, to all those Old Testament loving head cases, PLEASE check you clothing - if you're mixing fibres then it's an abomination to God and it's your moral duty to have yourself put to death. Finally, to " Brandon and Scott....Queer haters of the northwest" I'd like to say that I think it's really sweet that you post as a couple.
Why do you all care so much what other people do to their bodies? I personally don't like it, but I'm not going to judge someone who has had a sex change. If it makes them feel better about themselves that's great, and they are not hurting me any. And as for the people bringing God into this; where in the Bible does it say it is your place to judge? I think that is Gods job and you should take a look at yourself before you go trying to fix everyone else. Putting Gods name in front of your awful judgement is not going to help anyone see your point. I think people like you are alot of the reason there are so many athiests. Hold your tongue.
I have a song, to celebrate this joyous occasion.
An ode to my penis...
How I love the way you look at me, when it's morning and I'm feeling horny. You wink at me with your one eye, and you always want a piece of of the pie. (Tee Hee! Get it!) You've been there for me through the thick and thin (Fat chicks too) thank god I'm not queer and don't like gay men. So here to you, I sing this song. Because I can fit you inside my bong. You might be small, but thats just fine. But hey, at least your still mine. Some people wish that you were theirs. But thats only because they are queers.
Dear Brandon and Scott,
do your parents know that you write and think like this? from reading your very small-minded, ignorant and immature comments, one could only assume that you are probably two unattractive, unpopulars 15 years olds that are mad that you have to be 18 years old to look at porn sites, and somehow you stumbled across this. there must be something in both of you that is very insecure and unsure of yourselves to be feeling so strongely about what another man does with his penis. hmmm? and since it's obvious that with minds like you have, you probably have never seen a vagina up close, you have some sort of strange anger towards women who would like to change their own
vaginas.
why dont you little boys get a life and realize that when it really comes down to it, it's none of your freakin buisness who anyone goes to bed with or what they do with their genitals. i feel sad for you that you live in such a small world where everything but what you consider "normal" is wrong. i think the world would be ALOT better a place if the people LIKE YOU would jump off a bridge.
and as far as "god" goes, life is too short to live by a book that contradicts itself as much as your beloved bible does. life it too hard to suffer and be unhappy when there are ways to change yourself.
to those of you who have gone through this, i have the most respect for you. it takes a braver person to make these changes than to keep it inside and die a sad person who was untrue to themselves. best of luck to you!
Brandon and Scott; You two need a hobby! If you two are so disgusted by this site why do you guys keep returning? I think one of you, perhaps both, have some unresolved issues with either your gender or sexuality. If you can’t afford to get the surgery y'all obviously cant come to terms with wanting, get off your lazy, judgmental, asses and get a job. Perhaps then you will build up your own individual self worth and wont see the need to hate on all those courageous people who are only trying to make their lives a little more tolerable.
I knew that ignorance and intolerance were rampant in our society, but reading these posts has been a slap in the face rude awakening to the severity. I pity those of you who will live your lives trapped in your own narrow mind, but I know that you will never change. It isn't worth trying to explain things to you that you will not understand or appreciate.
To those of you with open minds, compassion and acceptance of brilliant medical technolgy: Isn't it incredible what they can do now! I feel a sense of relief for all of those who have had life-long identity struggles and who have now found inner peace. To all the doctors and nurses who have chosen to be these angels of mercy-you have my respect. And to all those who are considering or have undergone surgery-best of luck, and pay no mind to these ignorant fools; they don't know any better.
I have known transgendered people all my life, and they are compassionate, brave, and wonderful people.
I think it's interesting to note that almost all of the Bible-thumpers who have commented here lack grammar and spelling skills. I suppose that shows what religion gives you: pure ignorance.
These are real people, with a real problem, and if I believed in God I would thank him that these people now have solutions to their problem of being born in the wrong body! I think it is just amazing that we live in a society where people can change their gender because they were born with what to them is a genetic mistake.
I congratulate anyone who has gone through with this kind of decision, and I am inspired by them.
These individuals are so inspiring. I have known transgendered people most of my life, and they are some of the most compassionate people I know.
I think it is interesting to note that most of the Bible-thumpers who have posted here have shameful spelling and grammar skills. I guess that goes to show you what religion gives a person: ignorance.
These people are so brave. I think it is amazing that we live in a society today where people can change their gender due to what to them is a genetic mistake.
More power to them! They are heroes!
OK so after recieving a gender change do you think it makes you the same person? How does getting a vagina make you feel any better, or how does getting a penis make you any better or change you??
Does this change your identity?
how does this fit into perception on the individual? How does emotion play a part in this???
Debate mother fuckers,
One reason people referencing God might be on this page is that they may be curious about the details and ideas involved in such drastic procedures. I do not consider trying to understand something a sin.
Also, believing in God does not make any given person ignorant or uneducated. Many of 'us' have gone through college and studied widely religion and anthropology... however, these are generally not the more verbal of religious people.
Thirdly, gender does not take a person to heaven or to hell. Having Jesus Christ in your heart as your personal Savior makes the difference. If this happens after a person has had SRS, so be it. There are psychologists out there to be sure the people who go through with these procedures are mentally sound and prepared for what lies ahead.
Finally, I have to laugh at anybody claiming intelligence who cannot even manage to spell simple words, no matter what side of the debate they are on. You can be a born again Christian and have brains and you can be a very open minded and worldly person and have never made it through high school, so whatever you feel on the topic it is probably better to leave assumptions about a person's intelligence out of it.
Do we have nothing better for skilled surgeons to do than to cut and paste on these mental midgets? The focus needs to be on these people's brains, not their bodies. I don't buy the bravery, courage, strong spirit, etc. comments. You people have all been fooled by the weak-minded and equally weak-spirited. Get a grip. Life sucks sometimes, and no amount of cutting can genuinely help. What an embarrassing state of society...
"God doesn't do mistakes so why would you bee one. I think he has a plan with this in your life"
This was said to me by my "preast" right after my coming out as a transexual.
I don't believe in God making mistakes and I don't believe my life is a mistake, I think he had a plan with me being TS, and I'm glad for the opportunity to finally truly be who I felt like all my life.
To all of you who want's me to jump off a cliff, who says this isn't from God because he created me perfect from the start. No he didn't create me perfect neither did he create my brother perfect and my brother had a surgery to become "normal" why can't I have the same opportunity.
If anyone of you judgers would do like the indians and walk a mile in my shoes or a year. To se how hard it is to even get a sexchange surgery, to learn of you get like a child again, not able to deside over your own life, Going threw a lot of discriminating test, being forced to answewr very intime qusetions about your sexlife and partners, being thrown out of your family, friends or even the hospital. It's NOT a easy quick fix. atleast where I live it takes about 5-6years to get threw with a legal sexchange for some people It takes even longer and still they do it because they don't se any other way out.
I wonder if you biblejudging people would be as strong if your faith was tested as hard.
I considering myselfe to be a christian and I can't find any place in the bible where God would rejekt me, My bible talks about love for the outcast. And I'm sure that Jesus If he lived today would be friends with both gays and trans.
Be blessed everyone
(sorry for my bad english, it's not my own language)
Wow! Good for these guys and gals!
To the uneducated and narrow-minded: mind your own business, really, you must have a lot of time on your hands to go around judging people like that. Look at yourself first.
Also, to the "christians": Stop being the most immoral and judgmental people in existence. Also, go to college.
Why is it that sensible, logical, practical people are called "narrow minded?" Mind your own business? Well, when it comes to the demise of society, it IS my business.
I'm sure I wont say much that hasn't already been said before, but I feel I have a right to place my words down here.
As many have said, you couldn't imagine the pain we transgenders go through on a daily basis. With that said, I come from a God fearing family. Religion really has no place in this, but since such hypocritical bigots want to bring it here, I'll speak on it a little, too.
Religion, Christianity mostly (more than half of these religions are carbon copies anyway, switch the location and names and you get the same trash. Go see for yourself, google is a wealth of information at your fingertips)is much like Communist Russia. Marx had great ideas, great ideals, that would build for a more perfect society. Just like Christianity had great ideas, great ideals, that would build for a more perfect society.
Unfortunately, neither of these were carried out well enough. In Russia, communism ruled with an iron fist, using fear mongering, lies, and false faith. All over the world, Christianity rules with a bloody fist below the hems of their robes, using fear mongering, lies, and false faith.
I think I've used repetition enough that some of the more uneducated people should have gotten it by now. If you didn't, you don't want to see it. Turn back now, go pick up a book, go pick up the TV remote, go do something else, you are not needed here.
Furthermore, religion is an outdated tool as someone above mentioned for engraving moral codes and cultural rules into the populace as well as to give faith during hard times. It is much like wisdom teeth, sometimes they grow and fit in, and cause no trouble about the others already in place, other times, they come in and shove those in place out of their way. These are exercised forcefully. IMHO, this is what should be done to fanatics such as these rampant in our streets, hungry for blood in the name of some long bygone false prophet.
To finish my thoughts on this subject, how can people who seriously, literally believe one man was killed, then brought back to life days later look someone in the face and tell them that what they are is unnatural and doesn't exist? Where is your science to prove against it? If you reply to that last one, you are as ignorant as I assume you to be, because you can't prove god from a book of lies bound in blood soaked leather of ages of innocence slain.
Alice, MtF
i am cherokee (GYW- northern band tribe). Please let it be known that sexual identity and sexual orientation are not the same. You can be born a biologoical woman(who likes men)have a sex change and become a man, who likes men. the surgery does not change a peron's attraction, just their own identity. In my spirituality, which exists pre-christianity- actually places gays and transgender/sexuals on a pedestal. They are said to have two-spirits and are called winkte: the chosen ones to walk in perfect balance across mother earth. respect, honor, and pride i offer to you all from a people who remembers and knows how important you are to the connection of this earthly place and to spirit place. thank you.
Genetics are pure. People are born how they are supposed to die. God does not make "mistakes" in genders that science must correct. If God has given some individuals a different set of hormones or feelings, it just so they can walk a different path than everyone else, not seek medical help so that they may walk the SAME path as everyone else. The human body is a temple that should not be defiled in these ways. Claiming to be transgender as a way to embrace sin and hedonism doesnt negate the sin. Claiming there is no God and the bible is merely stories will not save any souls from judgement just because you say its so. Poor ignortant, aethist, bastards. I shall pray for every confused, sick, broken, mentally unstable transgender out there.
A man will never know what is like to be a woman and a woman will never know what its like to be a man, no matter how many surgeries, pills, or counseling sessions.
Ok, I have seen and read enough. to all you "GOD" qouting ppl, I have on many occasions wore panties to church.... Am I going to hell? Most likely NOT. Let me tell you a bit about myself, I have been crossdressing all my life, I could go into details but all the ignorant redneck dumb@55 closed minded ppl would not understand me so why waste my time, I am 32 and yes I came from some understanding areas of the world. but we had our share ppl such as yourself.
I do agree with some of you on the fact that in some (although VERY few and FAR beetween) cases that are ppl out there that can't cope with being homosexual and go for the srs. as for me I just like to EXPLORE broader horizons and getting in touch with my enfemme side, hell you never know they may be your fishin', huntin' buddy..
So the next time your sittin in your tree stand or on yer big bass boat or what have you drinkin CHEAP a55 beer. I will be out on ladies night, showing your woman whom you think "should be home makin yer SUPPER and cleaning your house doing your laundry cleaning your fish, deer or elk" I will be out on (Girls night out) dancing with your "ole' lady" buying her some good drinks, giving her the enfemme side that she sometimes craves....... crossdresser from Oregon, Geo
I think you guys are crazy. Do what you want to be happy. you only live once. who gives a fuck what people think. Kristen
''Poor ignortant, aethist, bastards. I shall pray for every confused, sick, broken, mentally unstable transgender out there. ''
WOW! You know, as Jesus's hands and feet on Earth, I can just hear him speaking through you! I remember the countless times that Jesus called people 'sick' and 'mentally unstable', and OH! Of course, he used the word 'bastard' to describe someone of another faith!
To me, people like you aren't even good enough to jam with Satan.
-- Jon.
It's pretty cowardly for some of these opponents of SRS to hide behind an anonymous posting. If you have such strong feelings on the matter, try pulling your tale from between your legs and stand up to be counted. I can sincerely say that I wish my heartache on nobody. You people have no idea what its like to wake up every morning and try to cope throughout that day in flesh that dosen't facilitate or coincide with your personality. "God made me this way for a reason"? For what, to suffer like I do? Don't you think that after 30+ years of this grueling hell that I havn't explored numerous theraputic options both clinical and otherwise to deal with my condition? And for the people claiming they'd disown thier children, you shouldn't have laid down to make those children in the first place. You all reflect poorly upon yourselves. If your so content with your own lives why are you on this site attempting to denigrate people like myself, huh? I would like to end by conveying my deepest appreciation to those that typed supportively on those of us in my community.
Its pathetically cowardous for some of these opponents of SRS to hide behind an anonymous posting. Not for me or another in my community, but for yourself and the benefit of those around you, try to factor the grace of reason into your lives. You could start by asking yourself, "Why would someone put themselves through something like that or deal with something as hellish as they claim it to be if it were baseless"? I sincerely wish my heartache on nobody. You have no idea what this is like and again, I'm thankful you don't. To reinforce that point, I'm very grateful I belong to a true minority class. Do you honestly think I desire to walk this life amungst so many miserable people? Yu know, my heart's already broken but I wish people like yourselves would quit tryin' to stab at it. Your unsubstantiated hatred reflects if not conflict, a bitter emptiness in yourselves. I can honestly say I hope you come to terms with such.
Yes! God loves us,And it is only by Jesus Christ you have a chance into heaven at all!God said he would give people up to a reprobate mind never able to come to the truth to be saved.Because they chose the things of this world over God.
What is more important to you,your sex change? or your soul?seeing you could not have a sex change if you honored God or feared God.You are in great danger!Dont do it!
Evil takes over peoples mind in these cases,this is something you would not do if you were in your right mind with God.This is not judging..this is fact!
As far as anyone judging--let me say hell is worse then anyones words.Please go to God and pray and seek the truth and stop giving into the flesh.Let me tell you the devil trys to paint a pretty picture.But hes out to dam your soul!
This is an evil and ungodly thing to have a sex change.And i stand on that, knowing that is the truth.You wonder why christians find sites like this corrupt one..
its because of people like this that need help,,we are not called of God to let you purposely jump in the fire like an idoit! We are led of God to help people..that means going where they are.Be glad a few christians have spoke out..take heed..
they are in their right mind and you are not..but Jesus can change you and put you in your right mind real fast! Be saved and delivered today! Jesus is coming back..
fuck all u perverts who support this crap. u all r screwed up
Everyone has the right to do what they want with their own body. I think these people should be proud of themselves for having the guts to embrace who they truly are and going to such great lengths to embrace it.
Like, WOW. OMG. That is so gross!! I would like never want my vagina made into a penis. That is sooo gross. OMG. They don't look right after the surgery, OMG. Sooo nasty. This should be illegal.
I'm happy in my body so far but am getting a nose reshaping this month at the age of 61. I wonder how I'd feel if I thought my genitals were wrong. Having a penis... I can only say EW, but for you folks that have or want one, it is the same as me wanting a new nose and being willing to go deeply in debt to get that little beak. We live in an age of miracles and wonders beyond anything we dreamed of even a few years ago. The creative urge is the God urge, I'm a born-again Christian, and convert to Catholicism, got tired of all the actively Gay priests and went my own way.
Think of all the societies that practiced body alteration for so may reasons. Are you going to bitch about them?
Reading this blog makes me angry. Why do people get so mad about what other people are doing to themselves? I thought it was live and let live. I am a nhilist, and the best revenge I can think of for the hypicritcal "bible thumpers" is there is NO after life. We die, we decompose,and nothing. Maybe we are nothing, and our feeble minds played some kind of "trick" on us. There is so many possiablites, we can't even fathom true nothingness. Why do so many people think they have the "right" answers? That just seem so narcassitic to me. The only thing I can do is, not let this blog bother me. I am only hurting myself, by letting anyone else affect me. I know this post will make no differnce to anyone, but me
haha wow. I can't even believe some of the stuff on here. first of all like to the like cheerleader above like get a life freedom of expression will never be illegal. and to all you ignorant gay bashing and bible hugging pricks you call us sick but we are on this site for education and why are you here? you are the ones who are sick if you're looking at mutilated genitals for fun you freaking idiots. and I don't care what any of you haters say because you walk down the street with trans people everyday no matter where you live and you don't even know it so saying we will never be what we are is hilarious because you probably didn't even know we existed until you saw pictures. if you're not here to learn something then why even waste your time if you hate us so much? obviously its not that disgusting if you took the time to look at the pics AND then post a comment. why even bother. to the creator of this site thank you for posting the pictures I appreciate it and thank you to all of the positive people out there you have no idea how much easier you make things for us. my full support to all (except you ignorant bible hugging freaks who call us sick but were not the ones following the rules of something in which there no proof of existance. haha you idiots)
That shouldn't be illegal!
IT's THE PERSON'S OWN CHOICE TO GO THROUGH THAT IF THEY WANT TOO!!
I am absolutely stunned at the ignorance of some of you haters out there. I AM a transsexual. I did NOT ask to be this way. But I am. And I do plan on having my SRS within the next three months. I am finalizing plans with a great surgeon and before you know it, I will FINALLY be the woman I was meant to be. I am still young, and quite attractive after a few years of hormones. I have a wonderful and caring boyfriend, and a good job as well. If you were to see me, there is no way on earth that you would be able to tell that I was ever a male. That part of me is gone forever. Now, I have just one little remaining thing to get rid of, and I will be the happiest girl around! You have no idea what it feels like to have been born like this. It's been a long road for me, but I am finally there. You people can say what you want, I really don't care. I find that most haters are the macho men whose ever so precious masculinity is threatened by girls like myself. You would love to get into my pants, trust me - you would love to do me. But, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. I would laugh in your face and walk away from you. You would be left horny and desperate, with nothing left to do but go home and yank on that pathetic little thing you call a dick of yours to get relief. You think with your little wee wee's You let them control you, haha. But, you won't ever get near me, no haters ever will. So, go crawl back into your cave, all you haters, and pretend that the world is filled with nothing but ignorant little morons just like you are. Not all of those who wrote comments are haters, and I thank all the people who are in support of girls like myself. Thank you, you make the world a better place. Bye to all the haters, LOL. And the next time you see a nice babe walking down the street, just think to yourself. That hot babe could have very well been a - oh how I hate this word, but they could have been a man at one time in their life. But, now they are turning your heads, and making you drool. Not all TS girls are hot - no way. I've seen my share of the ones who never should be considering this kind of thing. They are and always will be males. Girls like me, well, we are and always have been girls - right from the very start in life. Have a nice day :-)
I cant beleve people are soooo closed minded...Getting a sex change doesnt mean your "damned" ang going to hell lol come on..I am a heterosexual female...with gay friends and transexual friends..and if u think 4 a second that thet choose to be gay...and be taunted at by idiots like you...your more of an idiot...its genetic...and if you are a man but been gay all of your like an feel like you need to be a woman...THEN DAMN IT GO BUY SOME TITS! more power 2 u!!!
p.s i luv my fabuolous GAYS
I feel that yall should just mind your own business. We have much bigger problems in this world to care if a man or a woman wants to have a surgery. All yall so called christians should not JUDGE either. None of us could tell how anyone else feels in their heart and they are being their true self.
gooluck, PPL WHO HAVE CLOSED MINDS GO jump off a cliff!!!
HOW DARE YOU COME ONTO A SITE LIKE THIS THEN COMMENT LIKE THAT, U HAVE TO TYPE IN SEX CHANGE PICS TO GET TO THE SITE AND SEE IT IN THE FIRST PLACE....SO KEEP UR FOULNESS AWAY FROM GOOGLE AND PAGES OF INTEREST AND PERSONAL BUSNIESS OF SOME PPL OUT THERE LIKE THIS
I AM NOT A TRANSEXUAL AND I AM COMFOTABLE IN MY SKIN, BUT I AM BISEXUAL AND IF I HAD TO HAVE SURGERY TO PUT A PENIS ON MY BODY .......BABY, I WOULD, THERE NOTHING LIKE FEELING GOOD ABOUT URSELF, U PEOPLE WERE THE BULLIES THAT MADE ALL THESE PPL FEEL SO BAD IN THE FIRST PLACE, GO GET URSELF SHOT
THEY RNT LOOKING FOR A DNA CHANGE, GOD PUT THEM IN TH WRONGE BODY IT IS AGAINST GOD WISHES TO JUDGE HIS CREATION WEATHER IT CHANGES ITSELF OR NOT SO GO READ UR BIBLE REPEND THE HORRIBLE THINGS U HAVE WRITTEN HERE TO DAY AND GO TO HEAVEN WITH ALL THE PPL WHO U THINK R NORMAL AND US WHO CHOOSE TO BE DIFFERENT CAN LIVE ION EARTH HAPPY AND FREE FROM PATHETIC (WORDS TO HARSH FOR READING)......!!!!!!!!!!
U MAKE ME SICK........LEAVE THESE PEOPLE ALONE, IF I HAD HEARD IT COME OUT OF UR MOUTH IN PUBLIC IDE HAVE KOCKED U FLAT ON UR ASS PICKED U UP AND SLAMMED U DOWN HARDER AGAIN!
REMEMBER SOMETHING, RAPISTS WHO ARE MALE THAT RAPE MALES,R THOSE WHO ARE TOO AFRAID OF PPL LIKE U JUDGING THEM TO JUST COME OUT AND SAY THEY R GAY BUT WHEN BEATING THEMSELFS UP OVER IT GETS TO MUCH THEY RAPE UR CHILDREN IN FRUSTRATION....BECAREFUL, GOD PUNISHES PEOPLE LIKE YOU WHO HURT HIS CREATIONS!!!
SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!
GOOD;LUCK EVERYONE, MY LOVE GOES OUT TO U, U ARE A PIECE OF ARTWORK! AND U DID IT BY URSELF WITH THE IMENCE COURAGE U KNEW WAS HARD TO OBTAIN!!
XXOXOXOXO
LISA CUTELLI, REVESBY SYDNEY AUSTRALIA
the person who commented on this date ; March 28, 2008 10:54 AM
u want ur kids to disapear forever and be unhappy so u dont have to tell people they have now got a vagina or a penis oposed to what they had before and them to be happy!
u r a joke, u dont deserve to be alive for judging ppl like this in the first place!
stop talking about god, he made us to live so we do!
so u never wear makeup? u never wax? or maybe u never shave ur underarms either? oh wait....u do/....oh hang on that means ITS THE SAME THING U DUMFRIGGEN IDIOT! ONLY WITH THESE PEOPLE IT AN INNER DEEPER THING, SHUT UP U HYPERCRIT GO JUMP URSELF!
TO COMMENT ON: April 12, 2008 2:51 PM
U SAY IN OTHER COUNRTYS U GET BEATEN UP FOR HOMESEXUALITY.....WHERE? THIS IS 2008 NOT 1858 U RETARDED MONKEY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SO UR ADMITTING THAT U AND UR FAMILY MUST BE RASIST ASWELL COZ THIS TOO IS AN OLDEN TALE OF BEING BEATEN UP FOR SOMTHING PEOPLE SEE U AS DIFFERENT BY!
UR ALL REDICULOUSE GET OFF THIS SITE, Y TYPE IN GOOGLE SEX CHANGE PICTURES IN THE FIRST PLACE, DO U LIKE TO GET OFF ON IT?
HYPERCRIT
THIS IS FOR THOSE WANTING A SEX CHANGE OR THAT ARE CURIOUSE AS TO WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE POST SURGERY TO GET A CLEAR IDEA OF THE MENTL PICTURE!
GO TO NICKELODEON OR GODS R' US AND GO PLAY UR LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRARY GAMES WILL YA!!!!
THE ONLY REASON THE BIBLE DOESNT SAY THIS IS COZ ALL U BIBLE BASHER TEAR IT OUT...........
JEASUS CHRIST WAS A FEMALE!!!!
HAHAHAHA SUCK ON THAT CHURCHIES!!!!
DUM OLD FARTS!!
I'm MTF Religion has no part on person who feels that their in the wrong, who are you even dicuss that this wrong because the bible have transsexual people in it but their called eunuches. That means castrated men.Also Jesus didn't even mention that homosexuality was a sin or an abomination or transsexual or lesbians, Bisexuals he only talked about love. it was Paul who wrote that homosexuality is wrong. Guess What paul was a sexes pig and he believe that you should not marry the only person that you should is god. Of 32,000 verses in the Bible, only five directly mention homosexuality.
The Qur'an only directly mentions homosexuality once.
Leviticus, the book of the Bible which stipulates death for homosexuality, requires the same punishment for adultery, pre-marital sex, disobedient children and blasphemy.
The Biblical Jesus does not condemn homosexuality.
The destruction of the Biblical city of Sodom was due to their mistreatment of strangers.
The Bible never condemns same sex marriage.
The Biblical David and Jonathan had a formal same-sex union.
'Traditional marriage' in the Bible includes polygamy.
No known sacred text forbids same sex marriage.
Very few sacred texts even mention homosexuality.
Hindu and other far eastern sacred texts do not condemn homosexuality.
Homosexuality is not unnatural, it is practised by hundreds of species of animals.
Again, it's not about religion.
Logic condemns homosexuality
Logic condemns same sex marriage
Logic condemns transexuality
But go ahead... engage in homosexuality, keep up the same sex marriage, and go through unnecessary operations to mutilate yourselves.
Eventually you will weed yourselves out of the gene pool and there will be no more Democrats.
Logic Does not condemn Homosexuality
Logic Does not Condemn Same-sex marriage
logic Does not Condem Transsexual
by the way transsexuality isn't the correct term becuase a transsexual has nothing to do with sexuality
The logic is that people love people and there nothing wrong with that.
Your just insecure about yourself so you have get your horse about and preach but people are tired listen the your bullcrap we know what jesus said he only talked about love not homosexuality or transsexuals
Also logic has speaks for everything and I'll give you logic want logic bring on. You nothing else then degrade people for who they instead just leaving us alone
why the hell are even on this website or even commenting. To it sound that you have insecurities about yourself you need to check, One your on a website for transsexual to look and comment about, To me it sounds like you are one of us, if then why the hell are even posting or even on this site
you religious fanatics will burn in hell because you just only see black and white not the grey areas in between. there are a lot greys area that you won't even open your eyes. To me it seems that your just dumb and ignorant and let be because I know that I'm rise above your ignorance and discrimination.
plus you have no right to even dare
talk about other people unless you have three finger pointing at you
and karma is going bite you right your butt and probably fall flat on face and no one going to help because for to enwraped that don't see that world is changing it's not 1890s 1950s where people are hiding who they anymore.
Two homosexuals can of course commit to each other for life if they have the ability to do it, but it's not logical or necessary. It has nothing to do with the egoism and sexual hedonism that is homosexuality. And one would think that a true homosexual would oppose all such talk of commitment as nonsense.
Well, two heterosexuals can commit to each other for life if they have the ability to do it, but it's not logical or necessary for them either. A simple look at America's divorce rate (especially among evangelical Christians) should make the point well enough. We can be fairly sure by this point that Theist is using the incorrect definition of "homosexuality" that is so pervasive among conservative evangelicals. For Theist, a "true" homosexual is someone uninterested in the commitment that goes long with a loving relationship; when Theist thinks about "homosexuality," all s/he sees is the sexual act of sodomy (thus the close identification of homosexuality with "sexual hedonism").
Now, we might wonder why Theist has such a fascination with sodomy and homosexual sex, but that's not the point here. More important is the fact that this allows Theist to pretend that gays who are interested in commitment are, somehow, not "true homosexuals" - a very nice example of the No True Scotsman fallacy. For the gays I know, talk of commitment is not "nonsense." On the contrary, it is an important part of who they are because their relationships are an important part of who they are. This won't be surprising for people who understand that homosexuality is an orientation, like heterosexuality, but I'm guessing that it would be quite a shock for Theist to learn that gays are people, too.
This being the case, why are the homosexuals pushing gay marriage so much? It could only be that they can not stand having something around that smacks of moral superiority.
Speaking for myself, I can't stand something that smacks of moral self-righteousness, which seems to me to be a pretty accurate assessment of Theist's entire discussion about homosexuality and of the above statements in particular. Theist apparently can't fathom the idea that gays might want to marry because marriage is a traditional expression of social, psychological, and emotional commitment between two people who want to spend their lives together. Why? Because Theist can't seem to fathom the idea that gays might actually desire such a state of affairs with a member of the same sex - for Theist, being gay is simply a matter of having lots and lots of sex.
They will apparently stop at nothing short of leveling all forms of meaningful sexuality.
And just what is "meaningful sexuality"? Again, the concept is undefined (notice a pattern here?). Presumably "meaningful sexuality" for Theist is limited to genital sex between members of the opposite sex and purely for the purpose of procreation. It makes me think of two people who try to have sex with their clothes on so that they won't have lustful thoughts at the sight of a naked body. Frankly, I pity Theist's narrow and narrow-minded view of sexuality, but if it satisfies them then it's none of my business. If only Theist felt the same way when it comes to others.
Well, I don't suppose that level of compassion, generosity, and good sense should be expected so we'll just have to deal with what we have: narrow-minded moral self-righteousness that pretends to have something intelligent to say about homosexuality but utterly fails because it relies upon half-truths, un-truths, and an inability to explain even the most basic concepts involved.
The "logic" of homosexuality? I don't think so.
The Bible, the Qur'an, and Baha'i and Zoroastrian scriptures have a few passages which condemn homosexuality. An out of context interpretation of these passages has been used as justification for persecution of homosexuals, ranging from ridicule, exclusion, and attempts to alter behavior, to imprisonment and even execution. Typically these quotes are employed not because the entire range of scriptural injunctions are being applied consistently, but because the power structure needs cherry-picked scriptural justification for their actions.
Colonialism subsequently imposed this prejudice on a number of non-western societies which did not previously have this sort of persecution. Other major world religions, particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shinto, don't condemn homosexuals in their sacred texts, let alone mention the subject except in passing. This doesn't mean that societies where these religions are dominant or practiced are (or are not) tolerant of LGBT people; simply that whatever discrimination or persecution may be present is not based on religious grounds.
Modern studies of the nature of gender have found that human sexual preference is innate; homosexuality occurs in hundreds of species; and gender and sexual behavior is a continuum rather than two compartmentalized poles. Psychologists no longer consider homosexuality a personality defect or mental illness.
There will always be some that prefer not to accept the findings of science. For instance, there are a handful of Christians who believe that the Earth is flat because the Bible refers to the 'four corners of the Earth'. Some literalist Christians reject the Copernican solar system for similar scriptural reasons. However, many religions, even the most conservative, have shown a capability to incorporate advances in knowledge-- for instance, astronomy, geology and biology--that were previously contradicted by, or simply unknown to, scripture and religious tradition. For instance, modern Roman Catholic doctrine states that scientific theories of cosmology, including the 'Big Bang', are not incompatible with the concept of a creation by the deity-- this from the church that only recently lifted its pro forma censorship of the works of Galileo.
Values of tolerance and acceptance for others can be found at the core of all world religions. Many religious groups have not found it difficult to extend tolerance to LGBT people, even if this does not lead to acceptance within their religion, or sanctioning of same-sex unions or homosexual clergy. And most religious groups and people, across the spectrum, are opposed to violence against gays and other violations of their human and civil rights, regardless of their other beliefs on the subject.
The Bible, the Qur'an, and Baha'i and Zoroastrian scriptures have a few passages which condemn homosexuality. An out of context interpretation of these passages has been used as justification for persecution of homosexuals, ranging from ridicule, exclusion, and attempts to alter behavior, to imprisonment and even execution. Typically these quotes are employed not because the entire range of scriptural injunctions are being applied consistently, but because the power structure needs cherry-picked scriptural justification for their actions.
Colonialism subsequently imposed this prejudice on a number of non-western societies which did not previously have this sort of persecution. Other major world religions, particularly Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Shinto, don't condemn homosexuals in their sacred texts, let alone mention the subject except in passing. This doesn't mean that societies where these religions are dominant or practiced are (or are not) tolerant of LGBT people; simply that whatever discrimination or persecution may be present is not based on religious grounds.
Modern studies of the nature of gender have found that human sexual preference is innate; homosexuality occurs in hundreds of species; and gender and sexual behavior is a continuum rather than two compartmentalized poles. Psychologists no longer consider homosexuality a personality defect or mental illness.
There will always be some that prefer not to accept the findings of science. For instance, there are a handful of Christians who believe that the Earth is flat because the Bible refers to the 'four corners of the Earth'. Some literalist Christians reject the Copernican solar system for similar scriptural reasons. However, many religions, even the most conservative, have shown a capability to incorporate advances in knowledge-- for instance, astronomy, geology and biology--that were previously contradicted by, or simply unknown to, scripture and religious tradition. For instance, modern Roman Catholic doctrine states that scientific theories of cosmology, including the 'Big Bang', are not incompatible with the concept of a creation by the deity-- this from the church that only recently lifted its pro forma censorship of the works of Galileo.
Values of tolerance and acceptance for others can be found at the core of all world religions. Many religious groups have not found it difficult to extend tolerance to LGBT people, even if this does not lead to acceptance within their religion, or sanctioning of same-sex unions or homosexual clergy. And most religious groups and people, across the spectrum, are opposed to violence against gays and other violations of their human and civil rights, regardless of their other beliefs on the subject.
The King James Version
King James I, who commissioned the King James Version translation, was undoubtedly homosexual. It was whispered that "Elizabeth was King: Now James is Queen."
James I was responsible for reaffirming the Buggery Act of 1533, which criminalized sodomy in the UK. However, James I had several well-documented homosexual relationships. Although he had eight children with his wife, Anne of Denmark, they eventually decided to live apart. In 1607 he met Robert Carr, then age 17, at a joust, and had an on-going relationship with him for nearly a decade, which ended in a messy breakup. In 1614, he started a relationship with George Villiers, a commoner, eventually making him Duke of Buckingham in 1623. In 1624, James wrote Villiers a letter in which he asked "whether you loved me now...better than at the time I shall never forget at Farham, where the bed's head could not be found between the master and his dog."
this by:Sexual Politics And
Scientific Logic:
The Issue Of
Homosexuality
Charles W. Socarides
A significant portion of society today is of the belief that homosexuality is a normal form of sexual behavior different from but equal to that of heterosexuality. Many religious leaders, public officials, educators., social and mental health agencies, including those at the highest level of government, departments of psychiatry, psychology, and mental health clinics, have been taken in by a widespread sexual egalitarianism, by accusations of being "undemocratic" or "prejudiced" if they do not accept certain scientific assertions thrust upon them, as if deprived of all intellectual capacity to judge and reason. It is my contention in this paper that this threat of revolutionary change in our sexual mores and customs has been ushered in by a singular act of considerable consequence: the removal of homosexuality from the category of aberrancy by the American Psychiatric Association (December 1973). It is furthermore a fateful consequence of our disregard for psychoanalytic knowledge of human sexual behavior.
In what follows, I shall present a detailed account of social and political forces both within and without our organization responsible for this act and critically examine the spurious and pseudoscientific reasons put forth for the removal of a diagnosis from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual.
This act was naively perceived by many psychiatrists as the "simple" elimination of a scientific diagnosis in order to correct injustices. In reality, it created injustices for the homosexual as it belied the truth that prevented the homosexual from seeking and receiving psychoanalytic help. At the social, group, and community level, it proved to be the opening phase of a two-phase sexual radicalization; the second phase being the raising of homosexuality to the level of an alternate life style, an acceptable psycho-social institution alongside heterosexuality as the prevailing norm of behavior.
POLITICAL FACTORS LEADING TO DIAGNOSTIC CHANGE
In 1963, growing concern in the press and the medical profession prompted the New York Academy of Medicine to entrust its Committee on Public Health to study the subject of homosexuality. While the Commit-tee in its report (1964) concluded that "homosexuality is indeed an illness, the homosexual is an emotionally disturbed individual who has not acquired the normal capacity to develop satisfying heterosexual rela-tions," it sounded an alarm: it warned that "some homosexuals have gone beyond the plane of defensiveness and now argue that deviancy is a 'desirable, noble, preferable way of life.'" Spokesmen for homosexual groups argued that homosexuality was not an aberration; those so oriented were merely a different kind of people living an acceptable way of life, and, for one thing, they claimed it was the perfect answer to the problem of a population explosion (!). Clearly a disturbing trend was developing, with homosexuals banding together, not to demand help from psychiatry and the medical profession and public recognition of their condition (alongside those individuals with any form of neurosis or emotional disorder) or simply to protest against legal injustices, but to proclaim their "normality" and attack all opposition to this view. Those who took this view in the past constituted a vocal but very small minority of homosexuals compared to the large number of homosexuals who desired more help, not less, or who remained silent. To my mind just as alcoholism and drug addiction has become recognized as illness over the past several decades, so was sexual deviation increasingly to be understood as an emotional disorder and, similar to other mental disorders, not to be penalized when practiced among consenting adults. Freedom from persecutory laws as well as the granting of full civil rights constituted an integral part of this approach to homosexual individuals.
As a young analyst encouraged by the therapeutic response of my homosexual patients to the freedom they found in being relieved of the yoke of their homosexuality, I decided that the moment had come to act directly on the behalf of the homosexual and anyone else suffering from a sexual disorder, with the idea of making help available on request to many. I wrote to Stanley F. Yolles, M.D., then Director of the National Institutes of Mental Health, asking to meet with him to discuss some suggestions for a national program for the prevention and treatment of homosexuality and other sexual disorders. I wrote, "Of the whole range of sexual disorders, homosexuality is the most misunderstood. Homosexuality not only causes suffering for the individual but is inimical to the preservation of the family unit. The psychological conflicts which lead to the development of homosexuality, the anguish of the homosexual himself and the damage to his family and close associates produces tragic consequences. It should be the task of psychoanalytically informed psychiatry and modern medicine to dispel the mystery that surrounds homosexuality and dissolve the fear which attends any attempt at free discussion. Homosexuality, I predicted, could well be alleviated in many instances by fresh approaches to therapy. Hope could then be offered to many who had often surrendered in despair, the very real hope that a favorable prognosis was quite possible in most cases when homosexuals voluntarily sought help, Yolles' encouraging reply was that I meet with members of his staff with the possibility of implementing such a program, but representatives of our nation's central mental service (NIMH) dismissed it out of hand at a meeting in Washington, D.C. (February 3,1965). I went on, however, writing and publishing my findings (1968, 1978) and was invited by my colleagues to address the Adult Psychiatry branch of the NIMH on the problem and treatment of homosexuality in 1967. Shortly thereafter, NIMH appointed a Task Force on homosexuality. In October 1969, this Task Force submitted its final report in which it acknowledged at least in part the validity of my earlier proposal by recommending "the coordination of NIMH activities in the broad area of sexual behavior for the establishment of a center for the study of sexual behavior."
This task force did not by any means represent the forefront of knowledge on the issue of homosexuality. Only three psychiatrists were participants. One of them, Dr. Judd Marmor, had for years espoused the view that homosexuality was "normal." The Chairperson was psychologist Evelyn Hooker, Ph.D.,(1) who was of the same long time conviction. The Kinsey-Hopkins faction was represented by Dr. Paul Gebhardt, Ph.D., Director of the Institute for Sex at Indiana University, and John Money, Ph.D., from Johns Hopkins, an early proponent of transsexual surgery and the acceptance of homosexuality as normal. The law was represented by the Honorable David M. Bazelon, who at one point during the Task Force deliberations resigned. Psychoanalytic clinicians such as Bieber, Hadden, Bychowski, Rado, Lorand myself and others who had worked for many years in depth therapy with homosexual patients were pointedly left off the committee. On a subsequent occasion I was told by Gebhardt that this action was taken as Bieber, I and others were considered "professionally biased" because of our "Freudian approach." The NIMH report concluded: "Some of the primary goals of the NIMH service study of sexual behavior should be to develop knowledge, generate and disseminate information, mollify taboo and myths, provide rational basis for intervention, and provide data to policy makers for use in their efforts to frame social policy." The report asked for society's toleration and understanding of the homosexual condition and the gradual removal of persecutory laws against such activities be-tween consulting adults. These positions were good and well taken, but where the report failed abysmally was that it never concluded that exclusive homosexuality was a form of emotional illness, arrested psychosexual development, or a pathological condition of any kind, thereby lending tacit approval to emerging concepts of deviancy.
Meanwhile, militant political homosexual groups continued to disrupt a number of scientific programs both at the national and local level in which findings as to the psychopathology of homosexuality, its origins, symptomatology, course, and treatment, were going to be discussed, e.g., national meetings of the American Psychiatric Association; Association for Psychoanalytic Medicine (Columbia University); Panel on Homosexuality: "A Current Controversy," New York Academy of Medicine (November 27, 1973). Psychiatrists who dared to speak of their clinical findings were "discredited" even in the pages of the official newspaper of our own organization, e.g., "Psychiatrists Blast Colleagues' 'Prejudice' Against Homosexuals" Psychiatric News, June 7, 1972).(2) Some of these public attacks were augmented by hate-filled letters, threatening attacks over the telephone, and even threats of terrorist action against those who continued to speak of their scientific findings. Marmor, utilizing the nationwide distributing capacity of the newsletter distributed by SIECUS(3) (Scientific Information and Education Council of the U.S.), a private non-governmental organization heavily in favor of "new liberal concepts of sexuality" including homosexuality, denounced a Journal of the American Medical Association article entitled "Homosexuality and Medicine (1970) by this author as "an unfortunate potpourri of prejudice and misinformation [which] stems ... from obvious personal prejudices."
As a counter to such tactics, which tended to silence all scientific debate, I proposed to the New York County District Branch of the American Psychiatric Association that it should establish a task force as an official committee of that organization in order to shed light on the nature, meaning, and content of homosexuality to psychiatry and an increasingly bewildered public. Thus the first all-psychiatric task force on homosexuality was born. It was and has been the only such medically oriented body in the country. After two years of deliberations and sixteen meetings the task force, composed of a dozen experts affiliated with the major medical centers of New York City, attempted to submit its report on homosexuality to the Executive Council of the New York City District Branch, a report which unanimously documented the fact that exclusive homosexuality was a disorder of psychosexual development and simultaneously asked for civil rights for those suffering from the disorder. The report was "not acceptable" to the new members(4) (and some old) of the Executive Committee. Other business took its place in the Executive Committee meeting and although general statements were accepted as to its content it was not accepted into the minutes of the meeting. The message was coming through loud and clear: the only report acceptable would have. been one which was not only in favor of civil rights but one which declared homosexuality not a psychosexual disorder. The committee was then dissolved. Its members, determined that the report see the light of day, eventually published it as a "study group" report in the late Spring of 1974 (New York City District Branch APA Task Force Report).
In mid-1973, Vice President Judd Marmor of the APA and John Spiegel, President, APA, and other psychiatrists met with the Gay Activist Alliance, the Mattachine Society and its female ancillary, the Daughters of Bilities, and the Nomenclature Committee of the American Psychiatric Association at Columbia University, New York City, to discuss the deletion of "homosexuality" from the diagnostic nomenclature (New York Times, Spring 1973).
In November 1973, I was asked by a Newsweek reporter if I would care to comment on the upcoming celebration/cocktail party to take place at the APA headquarters in Washington, D.C. in December com-memorating the "greatest of gay victories"-the "purging" of homosex-uality from the realm of psychiatry. Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, a psychiatrist at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Secretary of the APA Committee on Nomenclature and Statistics, had been made chairman of the Nomenclature Task Force on Homosexuali-ty, apparently setting it apart from the Nomenclature and Statistics Committee itself. Dr. Henry Brill, a respected and dignified psychiatrist embodying the best traditions of the state hospital system, had been removed from a position of authority in respect to the issue. Spitzer, who to my knowledge had never previously published a single article on homosexuality or the sexual deviations, had composed a position paper on the meaning and content of homosexuality. It was upon his rationale that the Nomenclature Committee (or the task force part of it) had proceeded. His new definition was sent to the Council on Research and Development. The head of the group, in a telephone call I made to him soon thereafter, stated: "After all, homosexuals must be protected and this might be the best way to do it." I argued that we were all for protecting the homosexual against persecution, but this was a different matter.
Should we dismiss our scientific findings for social/political reasons? Joseph Stalin's insistence on substituting Lamarckian concepts in place of those of Mendelian inheritance for political purposes and the serious consequences to the science of genetics immediately came to my mind. We psychoanalytic clinicians had long been and continue to be in the vanguard of protecting our homosexual patients against assertions of degeneracy and unfair laws. After all, it was Freud who first admitted homosexuals and others were sexually deviant into the consultation room as respected and worthy patients on a par with till those suffering from emotional disorders of any kind. Psychoanalysis had begun to understand homosexual condition: was the homosexual to be "buried" by stating that this was a "non-condition?" Such an action would constitute a repudiation of all we have learned about sexual deviation. I said that homosexuals were individuals who out of inner necessity must engage in homosexual practices or otherwise experience anxiety. This was clearly a psychiatric disorder. We got nowhere.
From the Council on Research and Development the proposed change in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual went to the Assembly, thence to the APA Reference Committee. "Minor changes" were made in these committees, it was later announced. These "minor changes" were hardly minor, e.g. "heterosexual orientation disturbance" was to be included along with homosexuality as a "sexual orientation disturbance" to signify those people who were "disturbed" at the knowledge that they were heterosexual(!) (Minutes, APA Council, 11/3/73). It was decided a few weeks later that this was unwise, and therefore "heterosexuality as a disorder" was deleted. The new position favoring deletion of homosex-uality was obviously clinically untenable and scientifically fallacious, even to a first-year resident in psychiatry. There was no scientific ex-planation for this deletion except the statement that the homosexual did not experience "suffering"; those who disliked being homosexual and "suffered over it" or "complained" were to be considered to have a "disorder." We persisted that respect for the tradition of open scientific debate as well as professional ethics and morality required that we be given a hearing on this matter.
Our group of dissidents consisting of three members of the APA out of a committee of twelve received a hearing immediately preceding the Board of Trustees vote on December 14, 1973. I reviewed before the Board the serious consequences(5) of this change during an allotted five- minute presentation by stating that as a result of this position: [1] An alteration of theoretical concepts of healthy versus abnormal sexual development would have to "logically" take place; [2] Sex education in our schools would in all likelihood include homosexual sex education (this has already come to pass); [3] Despair would be created within the individual homosexual who wished help. The homosexual would forfeit his mammalian heritage, the chance to engage in the male-female design; [4]Homosexuals would not enter therapy or be dissuaded for long periods in doing so: tremendous resistances to therapy would result, injuring the patient's progress; [5] Suicides among those with gender identity disorder might well increase.(6) Where would individuals get help if they could not turn to psychiatry? The individual homosexual who wished to be helped, to rid himself of his condition, would be doomed by pronouncements of the Board of Trustees, family and friends would despair. [6] would confuse other medical disciplines such as pediatrics, to whom families and youngsters turned for advice, to say nothing of 'the rest of the medical profession; [7] Homosexuals were already giving lectures on the value of homosexuality as an alternative life style to some of our public schools and in our colleges; [8] Psychiatric residents would be reluctant to enter an area of psychiatric research where they would only receive attack, belittlement, and demeanment. Thus there would be a decrease in both our knowledge and psychiatric research in this condition. We strongly urged postponement of voting by the Board of Trustees.
The Board of Trustees voted practically unanimously against us, with two abstentions. It is interesting to note that only two thirds of the members of the Board of Trustees were present, barely enough to constitute a quorum for this important decision. Were some members simply avoiding a confrontation with the majority view already determined and adamant in their conviction? Otherwise, how could one explain their absence on such a critical issue?
A few weeks later, the "rationale" for 'the deletion of homosexuality as a psychiatric disorder was presented to the medical community. The "rationale" for this change was to be found in two items: The first was an official position paper presented by Robert F. Spitzer, Chairman, Nomenclature Task Force on Homosexuality, before the Board prior to its decision (Spitzer, R.L. [1974], "The Homosexual Decision-A Background Paper," Psychiatric News, pp 11-12). According to Psychiatric News, it was "essentially upon the rationale of Dr. Spitzer's presentation that the Board made its decision" (p. 11). This paper in essence repeated Kinsey's earlier assertion that exclusive homosexuality was a normal part of the human condition at one end of the Kinsey "homosexual - heterosexual scale."(7) It did not meet the requirements of a psychiatric disorder since it "does not either regularly cause subjective distress or [isj regularly associated with some generalized impairment in social effectiveness or functioning" (Spitzer). The second item consisted of conclusions supplied by Drs. Marcel T. Saghir and Eli Robins in their book Male and Female Homosexuality (1973). Saghir and Robins' "scientific" evidence did not employ any psychoanalytic methodology, but was a descriptive survey from which the conclusion that homosexuality was a normal condition was derived from one structured lengthy interview with homosexuals (recruited through homophile organizations) and "unmarried heterosexual controls" (solicited by mail and paid for the interview) and coincided with the position paper above.
The term "sexual orientation disturbance (homosexuality)" was now to be substituted for homosexuality. It was defined as follows:
This is for individuals whose sexual interests are directed primarily toward people of the same sex and who are neither disturbed by, in conflict with, or wish to change their sexual orientation. This diagnostic category is distinguished from homosexuality, which by itself does not constitute a psychiatric disorder. Homosexuality per se is one form of sexual behavior, and with other forms of sexual behavior which are not by themselves psychiatric disorders, are not listed in this nomenclature" (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) July 1974).
This diagnostic category underwent several metamorphoses in several editions of the DSM III, including establishing a separate category of "ego-dystonic homosexuality" (for those who were "unhappy" that they were homosexual) to the ultimate elimination of the word "homosexual" from the DSM III Revised 1987 as a scientific category (APA Diagnostic Criteria DSM 'Ii; American Psychiatric Association, Washington, D.C.)
A reversal of the decision by the Board of Trustees would require two hundred members requesting a referendum. It was for this purpose that a referendum was asked for. Fortunately, the American Psychoanalytic Association was holding its midwinter meeting in New York City at the time and two hundred and forty-three signatures from psychoanalytic practitioners (members and fellows of the APA who were familiar with the clinical problems of the homosexual) petitioned for a reversal of the Board of Trustees vote. It was a credit to psychiatrists in general that in the voting of the general membership (April, 1974) that was to follow on this issue (voting marred by hidden lobbying by homosexual activists)(8) held months later, forty percent of the psychiatrists who voted (10,000) took issue with the Board of Trustees' action, asserting that there were no legitimate scientific reasons for the APA's change in fundamental psychiatric theory. It is fallacious to conclude from this vote that the ma-jority of psychiatrists in the United States were in favor of the action, for only 25% of those eligible to vote out of more than 25,000 psychiatrists sent in their ballots. Despite this fact, the decision stood.(9)
By declaring a condition a "non-condition," a group of practitioners had removed it from our list of serious psychosexual disorders. The action was all the more remarkable when one considers that it involved the out- of-hand and peremptory disregard and dismissal not only of hundreds of psychiatric and psychoanalytic research papers and reports(10) but also of a number of other serious studies by groups of psychiatrists, psychologists, and educators over the past seventy years, for example, the Report of the Committee of Cooperation with Governmental (Federal) Agencies of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1955); the New York Academy of Medicine Report (1964); the Task Force Report of the New York County District Branch of the APA done in 1970-72 (Socarides, et. al., 1973).
To the psychoanalyst, this was psychiatric folly. Psychoanalysts com-prehend the meaning of a particular act of human behavior by delving in-to the motivational state from which it issues. Obviously these decision makers had not viewed individuals in this manner. When individuals with similar behavior are analytically investigated, we then arrive at objective conclusions as to the meaning and significance of a particular phenomenon under examination. Thus is insight achieved. To form conclusions as to the specific individual meaning of an event simply because of its frequency of occurrence (the number of homosexuals was often alluded to as indicating that it was normal)(11) is to the psychoanalyst scientific idiocy only in the consultation room, using the technique of introspective reporting and free association, protected by all the laws of medicine, psychology, and psychiatry, will an individual reveal the hidden (even from himself) meaning and reasons behind his act. The meaning of a particular act of piece of behavior can only be decided on the basis of the motivational context from which it arises.
The concept of "disadvantage" was introduced as a reason for declaring homosexuality a "non-disorder" by the Nomenclature Committee two years after the deletion (1976). The view that the homosexual of the obligatory type is at "no social disadvantage" is a denial of the realities that surround us when one considers that a society governs the behavior of its members from birth to death through its laws, mores, and other institutions. A human being is born with responses that constitute his mammalian heritage (a product of evolution). He is then introduced into a web of social institutions, a product of cumulative tradition which con-stitutes his cultural heritage. The two, mammalian and cultural heritages, lead man to his sexual pattern-heterosexuality. Heterosexuality has a biological and social usefulness. It creates the family unit and allows men and women to live together under conditions where there is likely to be the least amount of fear, rage, and hate. It furthermore regulates this relationship through a series of laws, penalties, and rewards.
Additional proof of the politicization of American psychiatry was to be provided later from an unexpected source: a book by Ronald Bayer, a fellow of the Hastings Institute of New York. He stated that Spitzer was "sympathetic to the viewpoint of the gay liberation group" (pp.130-131) and Brill was suffering from "indecision and discomfort with Spitzer's aggressive assumption of leadership on this issue." Even more important was the revelation (never previously acknowledged) that the Council on Research and Development of the APA did not officially investigate or study the issue thoroughly before it gave formal approval to the deletion of homosexuality from the DSM II.
It was to Monroe's council, comprised of five senior psychiatrists who were responsible for providing the APA with advice on matters of policy and with information on current issues in psychiatric research, that Spitzer's proposal [for deletion] was first under consideration. Though officially coming from the Committee on Nomenclature, in fact it had never been formally approved by its members and thus presented Spitzer's own effort to resolve what many APA leaders considered "a hot potato" (Bayer, pp.130-131, emphasis added).
Bayer laid bare developments that took place in December 1973. He states that the Board of Trustees "satisfied the formal requirements of providing a fair hearing [and proceeded] to render its verdict," but he omitted the fact that the requests for such a hearing had to be aggressively pursued (there was no invitation" to appear and permission to address the Board of Trustees was granted most reluctantly by its chairman, Dr. John Spiegel). Furthermore, this "fair hearing" consisted of a five-minute allowance for each person testifying, including Drs. Irving Bieber (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, New York Medical College), John McDevitt (Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of Cincinnati), Armand Nicholi of the Harvard Medical School Student Health Service-and myself. The time limit was strictly adhered to and no time was allowed from discussion. The suggestion by the Ad Hoc Committee Against the Deletion of Homosexuality (the "psychiatric dissidents"), headed by myself, that a pro-civil rights statement be made but that the question of scientific merits of the diagnosis(12) be left for further study and reflection, was peremptorily dismissed. Our proposal was unacceptable. For the next 18 years, the APA decision was to serve as a Trojan horse, opening the gates to widespread psychological and social change in sexual customs and mores. The decision was to be used on numerous occasions for numerous purposes with the goal of normalizing homosexuality and elevating it to an esteemed status.
To some American psychiatrists this action remains a chilling reminder that if scientific principles are not fought for they can be lost - a disillusioning warning that unless we make no exceptions to science, we are subject to the snares of political factionalism and the propagation of untruths to an unsuspecting and uninformed public, to the rest of the medical profession, and to the behavioral sciences.
Beyond the disservice to homosexual patients and their families, the confusion in the mind of the public, and the pushing back of the fron-tiers of our knowledge, what is the fate of society in all this? Abram Kar-diner, psychoanalyst, former Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, recipient of the Humanities Prize of The New York Times in 1966, warns:
There is an epidemic form of homosexuality, which is more than the usual incidence, which generally occurs in social crises or in declining cultures when license and boundless permissiveness dulls the pain of ceaseless anxiety, universal hostility and divisiveness. Thus in the Betsileo of Madagascar the incidence of homosexuality was visibly increased at a time when the society was under a state of col-lapse. Supporting the claims of the homosexuals and regar-ding homosexuality as a normal variant of sexual activity is to deny the social significance of homosexuality. To do this is to give support to the divisive elements in the community. Above all it militates against the family and destroys the function of the latter as the last place in our society where affectivity can still be cultivated.
Homosexuals cannot make a society, nor keep ours going for very long. Homosexuality operates against the cohesive elements in society in the name of fictitious freedom. It drives the opposite sex into a similar direction. And no society can long endure when either the child is neglected or when the sexes war upon each other (Kardiner, personal communication to the author, 1973).
THE PSYCHOANALYTIC POSITION
The psychoanalyst's compassion and concern as regards the external conflicts faced by the homosexual due to societal disapproval should not blind us, however, to the internal conflicts, conflicts which occur between various conscious and unconscious tendencies within the individual which are causative of this disorder. The homosexual, no matter what his or her level of adaptation and function in other areas of life, is severely handicapped in the most vital area-interpersonal relations.
A typical family constellation is that in which there is a psychologically crushing mother (in extreme cases) and an absent or abdicating father who does not assume his appropriate masculine role in relation to his son that allows the son to identify with him. In the female homosexual there is a corresponding inability to identify with what is viewed by the girl as a malevolent, malicious mother and a father who does not respect the femininity of his daughter. The female homosexual seeks femininity in the body and personality of her female partner.
Pathology, organically and psychologically, may be defined as a failure to function, with concomitant pain and/or suffering. It is this failure, its significance and manifold consequences that are so obvious in obligatory homosexuality-a failure in functioning which, if carried to its extreme, would mean the death of the species. Beneath this obvious failure of function and the secondary external conflicts it may provoke, lie the agony, sorrow, tragedy, fear and guilt of a both conscious and un-conscious nature which pervades the homosexual's life. Psychiatrists who treat such individuals in depth know this very well. Those who do not practice depth psychotherapy or psychoanalysis often do not observe or may tend to minimize the degree of suffering the homosexual en-dures-suffering induced by internal conflicts-inasmuch as the homosexuality also provides temporary relief from severe anxiety. Fur-thermore, obligatory homosexuality (in contrast to episodic, situational, or variational homosexual behavior, which is not considered a pathological condition per se) may cause such disruption in the equilibrium of the individual that all meaningful relations in life are damaged from the outset and are peculiarly susceptible to breakdown. Attitudes toward the opposite sex are often filled with distrust and fear as to render them incapable of any relationship at all, except on the most superficial and brittle basis. The obligatory homosexual is unable to function in the most meaningful relationship in life: the male-female sex-ual union and the affective state of love, tenderness and joy with a part-ner of the opposite sex.
The homosexual engages in a compromise adaptation, "choosing" a same-sex partner for sexual gratification in order to save the self from anxiety. The ability of the homosexual to neutralize anxiety motivates the homosexual to use this as a face-saving rationalization-that is, that he or she is not suffering from an emotional disorder at all, especially if one is convinced that there is no help for changing their condition. Despite the appearance at any given time of an adequate life perfor-mance, internal conflict threatens to disrupt this fragile adjustment.
Major breakthroughs have been made in psychoanalytic knowledge leading to the conclusion that oedipal-phase conflict in certain homosexual patients is always superimposed on deeper, basic preoedipal nuclear conflicts. In certain cases of homosexuality, h is apparent that object rela-tions pathology contributes more to the development of homosexuality than the vicissitudes of the drives-in other words, that the central con-flict of the homosexual is an object relations one rather than a structural one. These views apply to relatively pronounced cases in which the perverse development is clear and definite.
The combination of infant observational studies and developmental theories in the psychoanalytic material derived from the study of adult homosexuals helps to explain that the fixation of the homosexual lies in all probability in the later phases of the separation-individuation process, producing a disturbance in self identity as well as in gender identity, persistence of a primary feminine identification with the mother (in the case of the female homosexual, an identification with the mother perceived as malevolent and hateful), separation anxiety, fears of engulfment (restor-ing the mother-child unity), and disturbance in object relations and associated ego functions.
The homosexual has no choice as regards his or her sexual object. The condition is unconsciously determined, is differentiated from the behavior of a person who deliberately engages in same-sex sexual contact due to situational factors or a desire for variational experiences. As noted above, these constitute non-clinical forms of homosexual behavior. The nuclear core of true homosexuality is never a conscious choice, an act of will; but rather it is determined from the earliest period of childhood, in terms of origin, of course, not in practice. The homosexogenic family environment has been noted above. The presence of external conflicts which complicate the lives of homosexuals should not be allowed to obfuscate the valid clinical data secured through in-depth psychoanalytic studies, for this misinforms psychiatrists, the general reader, and, unfortunately, a vulnerable public.
Lastly, it should be stated that it is obvious to some psychoanalysts that the requirements for definitions of a condition or disorder on the basis of conscious anxiety and suffering ran counter to everything we knew dynamically about the mechanisms involved in this serious distur-bance. For example, the enactment of any sexual deviation helps to keep the individual in equilibrium and neutralize anxiety. It has been un-consciously specifically fashioned for this purpose. Therefore, the presence or absence of anxiety cannot be an adequate criterion to use when determining whether the condition is a disorder or not. Some of the most severely disturbed homosexuals have no anxiety because of their constant enactment of the homosexual act. Furthermore, Spitzer's proposal, as noted above, disregarded the following: [I] the presence of a specific need, desire, compulsion, or other symptom formation may so circumscribe pathology that a patient may appear to be functioning well in every other aspect of his life; [2] fully developed neurotic symptoms can mask illness as well as express it; and [3] the mechanism of sexual deviation results in the production of an ego-syntonic symptom, namely, one that allays and neutralizes anxiety.
The official position of the American Psychoanalytic Association is indicated by its definitions of homosexuality which appear in A Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, edited by B.E. Moore, M.D. and B.D. Fine, M.D. This glossary, first published in 1968, underwent its third printing in 1983. It states:
In the male homosexual there is, as a rule, an overly strong attachment to the mother up to and including the oedipal phase, which is not resolved by identification with the father but rather by partial identification with the mother. Object choice is narcissistic in type, i.e., the loved person must be like the self, and sexual excitation is experienced in regard to men instead of women. Due to strong castration fears, the homosexual man cannot tolerate a sexual partner without the tremendously valued male organ. Another common motive for homosexual object choice is the avoidance of rivalry with fathers and brothers.
In female homosexuality (lesbianism), the woman retains a strong original preoedipal attachment to the mother, which is displaced onto the homosexual partner. As a result of an unsatisfactory outcome of oedipal conflicts, her identification with the mother is incomplete and she holds onto mother as an object of love [p.48].
EPILOGUE
In the material cited above, I have described a movement within the American Psychiatric Association which through social/political activism has accomplished the first phase of a two-phase radicalization of a main pillar of psychosexual life: the erosion of heterosexuality as the single acceptable sexual pattern in our culture. The motive force for this movement was the wish to protect the homosexual against injustices and persecution which could to all intents and purposes have been removed by the demand for equal rights for the homosexual, a demand that could well have been fulfilled through humanitarian motivations so deeply embedded in our humanistic science. Instead, the false step of removing homosexuality from our Diagnostic and Statistical Manual was substituted. This amounted to a full approval of homosexuality and an encouragement to aberrancy by those who should have known better, both in the scientific sense and in the sense of the social consequences of such removal. (The relationships between social approval and homosexuality as a developmental disorder will be dealt with in a subsequent paper.) The devastating clinical fallout from this decision was to follow. Those who would wish to retain homosexuality as a valid diagnosis have been practically silenced by lectures, meetings, and publications, both originating within our association and from other sources. Political par-ties and religious leaders have been utilized to reinforce this silence. The press has been influenced as well as the media;(14) television and movies promote homosexuality as an alternative life style as well as censor movies which might show homosexuality as a disorder. Homosexual sex education has entered our schools and colleges-and pro-Gay activists, homosexual or otherwise, portray their way of life as "normal as apple pie" and intimidate others with different views. In essence, this move-ment within the American Psychiatric Association has accomplished what every other society, with rare exceptions, would have trembled to tamper with, a revision of a basic code and concept of life and biology: that men and women normally mate with the opposite sex and not with each other.
Forces adamantly insisting that homosexuality is an alternative life style have not been stopped by appeals to tradition, enlightened self-interest or even the findings of psychoanalysis.(15) Threats about what would happen to society do not have much effect: nobody considers himself society's guardian. The average citizen says he doesn't quite know what these social interests are and, after all, aren't personal decisions about sex a private matter? The answer to that question, contrary to popular opinion, is NO.
Psychoanalysis reveals that sexual behavior is not an arbitrary set of rules set down by no one knows who for purposes which no one understands. Our sexual patterns are a product of our biological past, a result of man's collective experience and his long biological and social evolutionary march. They make possible the cooperative coexistence of human beings with one another. At the individual level, they create a balance between the demands of sexual instinct and the external realities surrounding each of us. Not all cultures survive; the majority have not, and anthropologists tell us that serious flaws in sexual codes and institutions have undoubtedly played a significant role in many a culture's demise (Kardiner, A., 1939). When masses of people think similarly about previous sexual customs, their collective behavior will, in the last analysis, have a profound impact on the whole of society.
Scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, political leaders, public officials and others with vested interests today ransack literature for bits of fact and theory which can be pieced together into a pro-homosexual or bisexual concept of nature, man and society. Some of the individuals say that homosexuals are healthy, society is sick and that science should cure society. Others raise false or outdated scientific issues in their war with traditional values. Many of our values could use change, but polemical pseudoscience is not the way. No society has accepted adult preferential homosexuality. Nowhere is homosexuality or so-called bisexuality a desired end in itself. Nowhere do parents say: "It's all the same to me if my child is heterosexual or homosexual." Nowhere are homosexuals more than a small minority at the present time. Nowhere does homosex-uality per se place one in an enviable position (Karlen, A., 1971).
Some pro-homosexual proponents within the behavioral sciences state that mental illness is simply a product of social definition and that sexual behavior considered normal in one society may be deviant in another. Examination of the facts shows that this is not true of all illness and all behaviors. Some behaviors are universally deviant, and every society thinks them disruptive. Incest, rape, psychopathic (apparently unmotivated) violence are considered taboo in all societies. So is predominant or exclusive homosexuality or even bisexuality.
The counter to such forces is the knowledge that heterosexuality has self-evident adaptive values: decades and even centuries of cultural change are not likely to undo thousands of years of evolutionary selection and programming. Man is not only a sexual animal but a care-bonding, group-bonding, and child-rearing animal. The male-female design is taught to the child from birth and culturally ingrained through the marital order. This design is anatomically determined, as it derives from cells which in the evolutionary scale underwent changes into organ systems and finally into individuals reciprocally adapted to each other. The male-female design is thus perpetually maintained and only over-whelming fear or man's false pride and misdirected individual enterprise can disturb or divert it.
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Spitzer's rationale for removing homosexuality relied heavily on the work of Alfred Kinsey and his belief in the normality of homosexuality. For that reason, it shall be commented on in some detail.
The Kinsey Report of 1948 has been likened in importance by some to man's radically altered view of himself initiated by Darwin's discoveries. His conclusions are accepted even among some well-intentioned and educated people. The Kinsey Report has had in several ways a severe and damaging delayed impact on our sexual mores, especially as they pertain to homosexuality. Alfred Kinsey, a Ph.D. in zoology, made a valuable statistical survey between 1939 and 1948 of the sexual behavior of twelve thousand American males. His figures are still widely cited as there are no others of comparable scope to contradict them. In general, there is no reason to dispute his data as to incidence. The value of the exhaustive and informative survey was that it enumerated the manifold forms taken by a force so powerful it cannot be denied expression. The enormous public curiosity about Kinsey's figures blinded most people to some of the erroneous interpretations to which some of the figures gave rise, especially in the area of homosexuality. The Kinsey conclusions and in-terpretations have become a banner under which the gay liberationists and similar pleaders have rallied, citing them as sexual gospel. Kinsey, however, erred in attempting to interpret his statistics, a fault which was perpetuated by his followers. Kinsey concluded that homosexuality is present in ten percent of all males in a persistent (obligatory) form and in thirty-five percent of all males in the transitory form. He believed this was due to the fact that homosexuality is a biological variant. Kinsey in-vented a scale based on the incidence revealed in his own studies of homosexuality-heterosexuality, representing a continuum between homosexual and heterosexual behavior. To him this connoted that ex-clusive homosexuality was a normal part of the human condition, of normal sexuality, and simply existed at one end of the "homosexual-heterosexual scale." Exclusive heterosexuality was purportedly at the other end for apparently the same reason, because it was a "biological given." Conscious and unconscious motivations in the causation and/or expression of homosexuality, whether of the exclusive (obligatory) type or not, were completely disregarded.
The statistical studies of the type Kinsey offered ignored the concepts of repression, unconscious mind, and motivation. While they supply in-cidence rates 6f certain phenomena, they do so as if behavior has no con-nection with motivation. Since neither conscious nor unconscious motivation is even acknowledged, these studies arrive at a disastrous con-clusion that the resultant composite of sexual behavior is the norm of sexual behavior. The next step was to demand that the public, the law, medicine, religion, and other social institutions unquestioningly accept this proposition. Even intelligent laymen, gulled by the false interpretation of these statistics, were taken in and continue to be so.
In contrast to the psychoanalytic method of investigating behavior (motivational analysis), the only differentiation Kinsey and his followers admitted to is a quantitative one. For example, among the various forms of homosexuality, Kinsey was opposed to considering a man homosexual in whom the "heterosexual-homosexual balance" was only slightly or temporarily shifted to the homosexual side. Psychiatrically, this is incorrect, for the quantitative approach cannot replace the psychogenetic one.
Edmund Bergler, a psychoanalytic pioneer into understanding homosexuality, was fond of comparing this quantitative approach to the situation that would exist if someone invented the idea of subdividing headaches entirely according to quantitative principles, rating them from one to six according to severity.
Medically speaking, a headache is only a symptom indicating a variety of possibilities: from brain tumor to sinus infection, from migraine attack to uremia, from neurosis to high blood pressure, from epilepsy to suppressed fury. Instead of the causal (what causes the headache) viewpoint, we would have in this new order only quantitatively varying degrees of big, middle-sized, and small headaches (1969).
The Kinsey yardstick omits differentiation of the underlying condi-tions. Moreover, as Bergier notes, "in the previously mentioned rating of headaches, at a specific moment a headache produced by a sinus attack could be more severe than one produced in certain stages of a brain tumor." The homosexual "outlet" covers a multitude of completely dif-ferent genetic problems. Hence a causal yardstick is necessary for the dif-ferentiation and therapy of the confusion and many-faceted types of human relationships.
From the beginning, when Kinsey's figures were made known, few in-dividuals-except for Lionel Trilling in the literary arts and some emi-nent psychoanalysts, especially Bergier, Kubie, and Kardiner-cared to criticize Kinsey's findings. Still fewer treated them lightly, although H.L. Mencken in his volume Christomathy quipped: "All this humorless document really proves is: (a) that all men lie when they are asked about their adventures in amour and (b) that pedagogues are singularly naive and credulous creatures."
According to social historian Paul Robinson (1976), Kinsey's heterosexual-homosexual rating scale was a "pathetic manifestation of Kinsey's philosophical naivete . .. a hopelessly mechanical contrivance, which sought to promote a system of classification that bore little rela-tion to reality" (pp.73-74). It was a gargantuan scientific hoax promoted by Kinsey for reasons of his own. In psychoanalytic terms, it was a massive form of denial as defense. With remarkable prescience, Lionel Trilling, social and literary critic, predicted the dire consequences of this idea for the scientific community as early as 1948. He stated that in the future
Those who most explicitly assert and wish to practice the democratic virtues [will have taken] as their assumption that all social facts-with the exception of exclusion and economic hardship-must be accepted not merely in the scientific sense but also in the social sense, in the sense, that is, that no judg-ment must be passed on them, that any conclusion drawn from them which perceives values and consequences will turn out to be "undemocratic" (Trilling, 1948).
And so it is today. Charges of being "undemocratic," "cruel and in-human" (Marmor, 1973), "irresponsible, homophobic and prejudiced" (Isay, 1986) are leveled at those who would question the normality of homosexuality. These accusations are then reinforced by the media, mo-tion pictures, and the press, and render the ordinary citizen who disapproves of such practices, as well as faint-hearted members of the psychiatric profession, mute before their onslaught.
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The ability to engage in variational sexual experiences and substitute them for the standard coital pattern (male-female sexual coital pairs) (Rado, 1949) is a consequence of man's evolutionary development. Evolutionary development is used by proponents of normality of homosexuality for purposes of their own: they turn to Ford and Beach, prominent ethologists, and ransack their studies on primates to support the concept that "a biological tendency for inversion of sexual behavior [homosexuality] is inherent in most if not all mammals including the human species" (Isay, 1983, p.238). Ford, however, says nothing of the sort. He states that same-sex mounting behavior is not an evidence of in-born homosexual patterns which can he generalized to humans. Beach corrected this erroneous interpretation in 1971: "1 don't know any authentic instance of male or female in the animal world preferring a homosexual partner-if by homosexual you mean complete sexual relations, including climax. It's questionable that mounting in itself can properly be called sexual" (p.399).
Ford has made stunning discoveries-discoveries which prove the op-posite. They noted that above the level of the chimpanzee, only three automatic mechanisms for orgiastic release remain: erection, pelvic thrust, and orgiastic release itself. Everything else is learned behavior. Man builds up his sexual pattern by virtue of his cerebral cortex in combination with early childhood experiences. In man, due to the tremendous development of the cerebral cortex, motivation, both conscious and unconscious, plays the crucial role in the selection of individuals and/or objects that will produce sexual arousal and orgiastic release. Furthermore, not only is man's cortex responsible for the development of heterosexual patterns and the associated social and cultural which support them, but it is the unique action of the cerebral cortex allows man to develop all the sexual deviations as partial attempted solutions to inner conflict as well as facilitating roundabout methods of sexual release in the face of insurmountable fears. Sexual. deviations are beyond the mental and motivational capacities of lower animals. Evolution has relieved us of pheromones, sexual and olfactory responses to sexual stimuli as a major factor in sexual arousal, but it has left in its wake the possibility of deviant practices as well as other complex neurotic behavior. These deviant practices then may become the bane of one's existence when they become stereotyped and inflexible.
Charles W. Socarides, M.D. is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center, New York City. Author of The Overt Homosexual (1968), Beyond Sexual Freedom (1975), Homosexuality (1978), and The Preoedipal Origin and Psychoanalytic Therapy of Sexual Perversions (1988). Life Fellow, American Psychiatric Association; Member, American Psychoanalytic Association, International Psychoanalytic Association.
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1. Evelyn Hooker's widely quoted studies of homosexual men (1957, 1958) had been widely used by pro-normalization proponents to buttress the argument that homosex-uals differ from heterosexuals only in that they are homosexuals. They are not other-wise pathological and the adjustment of many is in the normal range, perhaps even superior to that of heterosexuals. Hooker's reports consisted of a detailed examination by clinical interviews and psychological tests of thirty male homosexuals and thirty heterosexual controls. They were not psychoanalytic interviews nor in-depth psychoanalytic studies. A careful review of her work by the Task Force on Homosexuality, New York County District Branch, American Psychiatric Association (1973) concluded that:
With regard to her major thesis, that there is no evidence to show that homosex-uals are maladjusted ... her study shows nothing of the kind. It is too full of methodological errors (particularly the spurious "controls" and confused think-ing) to warrant any such conclusion ... With regard to the "adjustment" of the homosexual, the study shows nothing, one way or the other. It was not adequately designed to do so (13 p. 471475; evaluation prepared by Ruben Fine, Ph.D., Clinical Professor of Psychology at Adelphi University, Supervisor of Psychology, Elmhurst Hospital; Vice President of the National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis.)
2. Homosexual groups began lobbying the APA and its meetings in earnest in 1970, ac-cording to F. Charles Hite, reporter for the Psychiatric News (1/2/74, Vol.9, No.1.) Homosexual militants severely disrupted programs at the annual meeting in San Francisco in 1975.
3. The SIECUS propaganda of the normalcy of homosexuality and the advocacy of homosexual sex education is a philosophy prevailing in several university centers and medical schools and dominates several societies for the study of sex, e.g., The Scientific Study of Sex, Eastern Region, University of Pennsylvania. It has dominated the Master's Degree Program, Department of Health Education, New York University, Human Sexuality Program to the point where heterosexual students were asked to engage in "homosexual experimentation" and students are "indoctrinated with theories of sexual orientation that are propaganda and not science" (personal com-munication, E.W. Eichel, M.A.; Sexual Education, letter to the Dean of New York University, Health Educaticin Program, 1986, quoted with permission).
4. Dr. B. Diamond, President, New York District Branch l970~l97l, who had formally authorized the task force, died in mid-1971. This was a great loss to all of us nation- wide.
5. Similar arguments with different emphases were made by Drs. I. flieber and J. McDevitt.
6. Over one-third of Harvard-Radcliffe student suicide attempts (25 out of 65, or 375) between 1965 and 1967 were made by individuals severely disturbed by homosexual conflicts (reported in a survey by the National Institutes of Mental Health, 1974) (Bunney, Melitta, Roach). More recently, The New York Times reports that "young American men from 15-24 years old are killing themselves at a rate 50% higher than at the beginning or the previous decade according to a new Federal study" (New York Times, 2/22/87). While the increasing use of drugs may play a role, disturbances in gender defined self identity, in my clinical opinion, are of crucial importance.
7. See Appendix A for a critical evaluation of Kinsey's material and conclusions.
8. The details of this lobbying effort are to be found in my paper "The Sexual Unreason" (1974, pp.180-183).
9. In late 1977, ten thousand psychiatrists, members of the American Medical Associa- tion were polled on this issue. Of twenty five hundred replies received, approximately sixty eight percent answered the question "Is homosexuality usually a pathological adaptation (as opposed to a normal variation)?" in the affirmative. This strongly sug-gested to the interpreter, Dr. Harold I. Lief, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, an authority on sexual problems and leading sex educator, that the "previous APA vote was influenced by political and social considerations [emphasis added] and that the vote was [misperceived as a step toward the denial of rights to homosexuals" (Lief, 1977, p. 110).
10. An exhaustive bibliography of these contributions can be found in my book, Homosexuality (1978).
11. The significant incidence of homosexuality (8-10% of the population) may well be due to the necessity for all human beings to undergo the separation-individuation phase of early childhood (Mahler, 1967), which is decisive for gender identification. A substan-tial proportion of children fail to successfully complete this developmental process and, therefore, are unable to form a healthy sexual identity in accordance with their anatomical and biological capacities. This is the core of the disorder.
12. Dr. Nicholi could not appear due to illness in his family.
13. An alternative argument to homosexuality simply being an alternative life style was that it was simply a "biological variant." This argument is discussed in Appendix B.
14. The destructive effects of the mass media in this regard requires special study beyond the purpose of this paper. Such a study, however, begins with understanding the mechanism through which mass media exerts its effort. The mass media satisfy a pressing need for expression, keeps people from feeling painfully alone, and distracts individuals from their own problems. Its content arises from the prevailing social cur-rents and its aim is to relieve tension. Needs are constantly stimulated and wishes en-couraged in every way. Although we do not do something sexual or aggressive, we get a kick out of watching others do the forbidden. The knowledge that life and emotion may be thereby devalued makes no difference. There is an implied permission to do the same thing.
15. At the present time (1986-1987) pro-gay activists groups, even within the American Psychoanalytic Association, are asserting that Freudian analysts who treat homosex-uals for their disorder are "homophobic" and have been "prejudiced" by our culture.
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The American Psychoanalytic Association (1968). A Glossary of Psychoanalytic Terms and Concepts, revised 1983. New York, p.48.
Beach, F.A. (1942). Central nervous mechanisms involved in the reproductive behavior of vertebrates. Psychological Bulletin, 39:200.
….. (1947). A review of physiological and psychological studies of sexual behavior in mammals. Physiological Review, 27:240.
…… (1971). As quoted in Sexuality and Homosexuality by A. Karlin. New York: W.W. Norton, 1971, p.399.
Bergler, E. (l969). Selected Papers of Edmund Bergler. New York: Grune & Stratton. Committee on Cooperation with Governmental (Federal) Agencies of the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1955). Report on homosexuality with particular em-phasis on the problem in governmental agencies. Report No.30, Jan.1955. Topeka, Kan.
Eichel, E.W. (1986). Personal correspondence to the author. Views cited found in a letter to Dean of New York University, Health Education Dept.
Freud, 5. (1905). Three essays on the theory of sexuality. St. Ed., 7:125-244. London: Hogarth Press, 1958
..... (1911). Formulations on the two principles of mental functioning. St. Ed., 12:213-226. London: Hogarth Press, 1958.
Hooker, E. (1957). The adjustment of male homosexuals. Journal of Project Techniques, 21:17-31.
….. (1958). Male homosexuality in the Rorschach. Journal of Project Techniques, 22:33-54.
Kardiner, A. (1939). The Individual and his Society. The psychodynamics of Primitive Social Organization. New York: Columbia University Press.
Karlen, A. (1971). Sentalfty and Homosexuality. New York: Norton.
Kinsey, A. et al. (1948). Sexual Behavior in the Human Male. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders.
Lief, H.1. (1977). Sexual survey #4: Current thinking on homosexuality. Medkal Aspects of Human Sexuality, 11:110.
Mahler, M.S. (l967). On human symbiosis and the vicissitudes of individuation. Journal American Psychoanalytic Association, 15:740-763.
New York Academy of Medicine Report of the Committee on Public Health (1964). The Problem of Homosexuality. N.Y. Acad. Med. Bulletin, 40:57&580.
New York City District Branch APA Task Force Report on Homosexuality (1972). (C.W. Socarides [Chairman], Bieber, I., Byschowski, G., Gershman, H., Jacobs, T.J., Myers, W., Nackenson, B.L., Prescott, K.F., Rifkin, A.H., Stein, S., & Terry, J.) Published as: Homosexuality in the male: A report of a psychiatric study group. Int. J. Psychiatry, 2, (4):460479 (1973).
Panel Report (1983). Toward a further understanding of homosexual men. J. Amer. Psychoanalytic Association, 34:193-206. R.C. Friedman, reporter.
Rado, S. (1949). An adaptational view of sexual behavior. In: Psychosexual Developments in Health and Disease, eds. P.H. Hoch & J. Zubin. New York: Grune & Stratton, pp. Mso in: Psychoanalysis of Behavior: The Collected Papers of S. Rado. New York:Grune & Stratton, 1956; pp.186-213.
Robinson, P. (1976). The Modernization of Sex. New York: Harper & Row, pp.73-74.
Saghir, M.T. & Robins, E. (1973). Male and Female Homosexuality Baltimore: William & Wilkins Company.
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