Photo: NBC News
They soon got “married” in a same sex “marriage” ceremony. The gay trans “man” (who is actually a woman) has stopped taking testosterone injections and is now pregnant with child.
I use quotation marks above not to be in any way disrespectful or dismissive of a person but to show how these words have, with the present gender dysphoria, become meaningless.Calling a biological male or female by their opposite noun or pronoun does not acknowledge their identity but further confuses it, assisting in cutting off that person’s connection to their own bodily reality. Saying a man is a woman or a woman is a man ignores the most basic truth of their very being; a truth inscribed even in the genetic markers that identify them in their trillions of somatic cells as male or female.
This mismatching of names creates a misconception of human sexuality and identity. In the words of the gay man in the above story, one reaches the sundered conclusion that “body parts matter a lot less than we think they do.”
However, in light of St. John Paul II’s theology of the body, an extensive reflection on our anthropology rooted in Genesis, we were meant from the beginning to be in harmony with our bodies. We are, in fact, our bodies. Our parts are part of the whole, and the human spirit suffuses all of the parts.
Our healing, in this revealed light, lies in a reconciliation with our bodily reality, not a license to reconfigure it.
It seems, however, that reconfiguring and redefining the inherent meaning of things lies behind the more militant LGBTQIA+ agenda. Law professor and homosexual activist Paula Ettelbrick once said:
Being queer means pushing the parameters of sex, sexuality and family; and, in the process, transforming the very fabric of society. We must keep our eyes on the goals of providing true alternatives to marriage and of radically reordering society’s view of reality.
In this article, I want to address not so much this philosophical and epistemological attack on the nature of the person, the family, and indeed reality itself, but to offer a kind of posture when it comes to addressing the actual people caught in this maelstrom.
We see an increase in encounters with people struggling with their sexual identity in our families, friendships, neighborhoods, parishes, schools, and universities. The gender ideologies at present offer dozens of varieties of expression and encourage exploration. These attempts to redefine our sexuality have created a crisis of conscience for many regarding dialogue with their family members or friends who are seeking to “transition,” desire to be called by a new pronoun or name, or perhaps “marry” a person of the same sex.
So how should a “heteronormative” person (that is, one who subscribes to a world view that promotes heterosexuality as the normal or preferred sexual orientation) respond to the person before them who subscribes to such a non-traditional or non-binary agenda?
HOW TO RESPOND TO SOMEONE WITH AN LGBTTQQFAGPBDSM ASCRIBED IDENTITY
(or any human suffering from the consequences of original sin in general)
SAY P.L.E.A.S.E.
1. PRAY quietly to the Holy Spirit the WHOLE time you are in conversation with the other person, for healing and wholeness in yourself (first and foremost) and for healing and wholeness in the other person.
2. LOVE them. They image God on earth. You’re called to communion with them as a fellow image of God. So look at them, in the eyes, where the life of their spirit bubbles up and over, spilling into yours.
3. ENTER into their experience. Listen more than you talk.
4. ASK them what they want more than anything else in the world. Chances are you want the same thing. Then, when common ground is set…
5. SHARE a bit of your own sense of your identity; where have you come from, where are you going? Share your crooked path, the imperfect family history. The faces and the places that formed you. Your own longing to be known, to be loved, to be seen, to have a relationship and a place to find and to give yourself. Share your understanding of the theology of the body, the plan of God for making us male and female, called to love and life through sexual complementarity.
6. EXPLAIN that you care for them and that in that light, you are honored to have shared time talking together and would love to talk some more. Don’t feel like you need to fix something, tidy something up, bring closure or sign a contractual agreement. You just shared some human time together. What did you learn by receiving the gift of this other person? Maybe it was messy, heated, maybe you were misunderstood. That’s ok too. What did you learn from that experience?
If the conversation continues (and pray it does), talk about your personal experience of the way you came to know your identity – by contact with the world through the reality of your body, through the mystery of other people in your family, and through the other people and things around you.
COMING BACK TO OUR SENSES
All of our senses are doorways to the world, and we learn the world and how it works and what it means through the portals of our senses.
We learn that in the hearing, seeing, tasting, and touching through our sense organs, there is often a gift or pleasure connected with the function. Generally speaking, the ears are for listening, the eyes for looking, the tongue for tasting and the genitals for generating new life.
Happiness and peace flow from our being attentive to and obedient to the nature of these things. Sometimes wounds come through these places.
But closing them off or going against the nature of a thing would bring discontent. It would be both dysfunctional and dysphoric.
A rightly ordered and happy heart, mind, and body come from receiving the reality with which we are born and living out its mystery in the light of God’s plan for its nature.
Feelings can be confusing, and even the clearest of them is still a feeling which needs the collaboration of the informed and inspired mind and heart.
At the end of the day, we are not defined by our feelings, attractions, or impulses but they can be a powerful fuel to assist us in self-discovery and the discovery of God.
Pope Francis wrote in his exhortation on the Joy of Love:
Desires, feelings, emotions, what the ancients called ‘the passions’, all have an important place… They are awakened whenever ‘another’ becomes present and part of a person’s life.
It is characteristic of all living beings to reach out to other things, and this tendency always has basic affective signs: pleasure or pain, joy or sadness, tenderness or fear. They ground the most elementary psychological activity.
Human beings live on this earth, and all that they do and seek is fraught with passion.”
(Pope Francis, The Joy of Love, 143)
Man is invited through these feelings, attractions, and passions to “reconcile himself to his natural greatness,” in the words of St. John Paul II. He goes further:
But precisely when he so deeply enters into the order of nature, when he immerses himself, as it were, in the vehement processes of nature, he cannot forget that he is a person. Instinct alone will not solve anything in him, for everything appeals to his “interiority,” to reason and responsibility.
What appeals to him in a particular way is this love that stands at the cradle of the coming to be of human kind. Responsibility for love… is bound most closely with responsibility for procreation.
Therefore, by no means can love be separated from parenthood, the readiness for which constitutes a necessary condition of love.”
(St. John Paul II, Love and Responsibility)
Perhaps in the opening story, with all of the twists and turns the path took for the two, there is this spark “at the cradle of the coming to be of human kind. Responsibility for love.”
For all of the obfuscation, their bodies returned to a primordial truth – life comes to be when man meets woman.
Only in this return, this coming back to our senses, will the gift and sign of our sexuality make sense.
MORE EXCELLENT RESOURCES:
USCCB Resource on Gender Ideology:
http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/promotion-and-defense-of-marriage/upload/Gender-Ideology-Select-Teaching-Resources.pdf
Fr. Mike Schmitz on Transgender Question:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-9_rxXFu9I
Dr. Paul McHugh, Surgical Sex:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/11/surgical-sex
Transgender Surgery Isn’t the Solution:
A drastic physical change doesn’t address underlying psycho-social troubles.
By Paul McHugh
https://www.wsj.com/articles/paul-mchugh-transgender-surgery-isnt-the-solution-1402615120
This article was first published on tobinstitute.org.
The cacophony and confusion over current sexual fashions and variations in the US, are, in my opinion, symptomatic of general decline due to the amassing of ever more debt and the concentration of wealth in ever fewer hands. No one has addressed these problems, and, the distraction provided by social-cultural matters such as sexuality, serves as a means of preventing public action toward these basic pathologies. As for the variations of sexuality, the tendency of the US to meddle time and time again in other lands plus its endless piling of debt on debt, I am reminded of the words from a seventies movie slightly changed: “USA, it’s all over. Your mission is a failure Your lifestyle’s too extreme.” The feel-good comments I read over will not help prevent reality asserting itself. Keep this in mind.
I am genderqueer and this is insulting to my very core. First of all, using the correct pronouns is not confusing to anyone. He is a man. A gay man. And he can get pregnant. So what? Some men can get pregnant. I have bad gender dysphoria and saying that simply dressing and acting like a woman is not going to make it go away. It is only going to make it worse. Finally, why does the Catholic church get to decide on how I dress. On what my gender is. Furthermore, if I want an abortion, why does a group of older men get to decide what I get to do? This is the patriarchy at its core. Please just let people live their lives in peace.
Very helpful and Great information,
we appreciate advise especially coming from a professional.
Thanks again and keep up the great work!
God bless them both they look truly beautiful. I remember when I and my husband got married.
Kathy
Marriage is so beautiful! I love these two.
Petey
I m pro gay and i think the government needs to do more to protect lgbt people. Jenny
This is really a confusion as to how these relation grow and how people will react.
Joyce
Awsome info and right to the point. I don’t know if this is truly the best place to ask but do you people have any thoughts on where to employ some professional writers? Thanks 🙂
Regards: Eve Hunt
I do the same tbh, before i date someone online i immediately tell them.. Sometimes it turns out good, and eh, and sometimes it turns out bad lol.. but damn, that’s why i carry a blade, So if someone tries to fight me i don’t have to take any chances, ill fight if i’m in the mood but if they tryin to fight when i’m not then ill pull a blade.. but all is well, anyway just subbed, she is so prettier than me lol
Regards
Ross Alisha
Way too ‘touchy-feely’ here… Sometimes, in order for people to change, or to be awakened to the truth, they need to have what’s called a ‘significant emotional event.’ And, yes, I understand they’ve probably already had some of those, but I’m talking about the type offered by St. Paul in: 1 Cor 5. Cast out the evil-doer! Don’t pander to them! It is a charity to tell homosexuals the truth! When I have tried your touchy-feely methods in the past, I became embroiled in a full-fledged attempt by a homosexual to undermine my own position (the Church’s understanding of God’s truth). When that didn’t work, the individual resorted to emotional extortion: “Don’t you want me to be happy?!” and “If you don’t accept my gay lifestyle, I’m going to kill myself!” It didn’t matter how many times I told him I loved him and that I wanted him to get to heaven. And it didn’t matter that he was my brother! In the end, because I wouldn’t tell him that God (and I) approved of his illicit union, he resorted to: “F*** You!” …and, we never spoke again. If you had witnessed our exchanges, you would have seen me being calm, reasonable and loving (accepting of him as my brother and as a human being). He, though, would have been seen as angry, irate and unreasoned (normal for someone blinded by sin or trapped in addiction). And my siblings, who refused to be “unaccepting” of our brother, still welcomed him into their homes, to holiday gatherings, to baptisms and confirmations (chose him as a Confirmation sponsor for one of my nephews) and made sure he felt welcome in the family. Now, years later, all (and I mean ALL) of my nieces and nephews are fully supportive of my brother and his gay lifestyle, and they believe me to be a hateful troglodyte. They all gave in to the emotional extortion, and they compromised their faith. Now, they think the Church is cruel for teaching that homosexuality is wrong, and only one of my five siblings even tries to go to Church anymore (occasionally). And, even he thinks the Church is wrong in it’s teachings on homosexuality. Most of my own family fundamentally misunderstands the true nature of love. Love is intimately related to TRUTH, whether or not its easy, hurtful or agonizingly difficult to stand up for it. It isn’t charitable (or nice, or accepting) to watch someone drive toward a cliff without telling them they are going to die on this road. And this death lasts for all eternity! Read Ezekiel 3:17-21! If the entire family had taken a stand, as St. Paul teaches, and told him that he is loved but henceforth excluded from the community (family) till he changed his evil ways, he might have taken my words (and my love) more seriously. He might have prayed and thought more about his actions and choices. But, since its only my parents and I standing athwart his lifestyle, he has become the social martyr and we are the “bad guys!” Now, confirmed in his sin, he has become an activist for gay marriage. His new community of gays and activists are fully accepting of him! He has a great job and lots of money! He is ‘married’ to his ‘partner,’ and still doesn’t understand why he isn’t happy. And, my siblings still try to console him in his misery without one of them praying for him or suggesting he try living according to God’s will instead of his own. All I can do now is pray for all of them. And, by the way, two of my nephews were repeatedly raped by a gay man when they were kids growing up in this ‘environment.’
Way too ‘touchy-feely’ here… Sometimes, in order for people to change, or to be awakened to the truth, they need to have what’s called a ‘significant emotional event.’ And, yes, I understand they’ve probably already had some of those, but I’m talking about the type offered by St. Paul in: 1 Cor 5. Cast out the evil-doer! Don’t pander to them! It is a charity to tell homosexuals the truth! When I have tried your touchy-feely methods in the past, I became embroiled in a full-fledged attempt by a homosexual to undermine my own position (the Church’s understanding of God’s truth). When that didn’t work, the individual resorted to emotional extortion: “Don’t you want me to be happy?!” and “If you don’t accept my gay lifestyle, I’m going to kill myself!” It didn’t matter how many times I told him I loved him and that I wanted him to get to heaven. And it didn’t matter that he was my brother! In the end, because I wouldn’t tell him that God (and I) approved of his illicit union, he resorted to: “F*** You!” …and, we never spoke again. If you had witnessed our exchanges, you would have seen me being calm, reasonable and loving (accepting of him as my brother and as a human being). He, though, would have been seen as angry, irate and unreasoned (normal for someone blinded by sin or trapped in addiction). And my siblings, who refused to be “unaccepting” of our brother, still welcomed him into their homes, to holiday gatherings, to baptisms and confirmations (chose him as a Confirmation sponsor for one of my nephews) and made sure he felt welcome in the family. Now, years later, all (and I mean ALL) of my nieces and nephews are fully supportive of my brother and his gay lifestyle, and they believe me to be a hateful troglodyte. They all gave in to the emotional extortion, and they compromised their faith. Now, they think the Church is cruel for teaching that homosexuality is wrong, and only one of my five siblings even tries to go to Church anymore (occasionally). And, even he thinks the Church is wrong in it’s teachings on homosexuality. Most of my own family fundamentally misunderstands the true nature of love. Love is intimately related to TRUTH, whether or not its easy, hurtful or agonizingly difficult to stand up for it. It isn’t charitable (or nice, or accepting) to watch someone drive toward a cliff without telling them they are going to die on this road. And this death lasts for all eternity! Read Ezekiel 3:17-21! If the entire family had taken a stand, as St. Paul teaches, and told him that he is loved but henceforth excluded from the community (family) till he changed his evil ways, he might have taken my words (and my love) more seriously. He might have prayed and thought more about his actions and choices. But, since its only my parents and I standing athwart his lifestyle, he has become the social martyr and we are the “bad guys!” Now, confirmed in his sin, he has become an activist for gay marriage. His new community of gays and activists are fully accepting of him! He has a great job and lots of money! He is ‘married’ to his ‘partner,’ and still doesn’t understand why he isn’t happy. And, my siblings still try to console him in his misery without one of them praying for him or suggesting he try living according to God’s will instead of his own. All I can do now is pray for all of them. And, by the way, two of my nephews were repeatedly raped by a gay man when they were kids growing up in this ‘environment.’ I would say more, but I need to go pull some planks out of my own eyes….
Way too ‘touchy-feely’ here… Sometimes, in order for people to change, or to be awakened to the truth, they need to have what’s called a ‘significant emotional event.’ And, yes, I understand they’ve probably already had some of those, but I’m talking about the type offered by St. Paul in: 1 Cor 5. Cast out the evil-doer! Don’t pander to them! It is a charity to tell homosexuals the truth! When I have tried your touchy-feely methods in the past, I became embroiled in a full-fledged attempt by a homosexual to undermine my own position (the Church’s understanding of God’s truth). When that didn’t work, the individual resorted to emotional extortion: “Don’t you want me to be happy?!” and “If you don’t accept my gay lifestyle, I’m going to kill myself!” It didn’t matter how many times I told him I loved him and that I wanted him to get to heaven. And it didn’t matter that he was my brother! In the end, because I wouldn’t tell him that God (and I) approved of his illicit union, he resorted to: “F*** You!” …and, we never spoke again. If you had witnessed our exchanges, you would have seen me being calm, reasonable and loving (accepting of him as my brother and as a human being). He, though, would have been seen as angry, irate and unreasoned (normal for someone blinded by sin or trapped in addiction). And my siblings, who refused to be “unaccepting” of our brother, still welcomed him into their homes, to holiday gatherings, to baptisms and confirmations (chose him as a Confirmation sponsor for one of my nephews) and made sure he felt welcome in the family. Now, years later, all (and I mean ALL) of my nieces and nephews are fully supportive of my brother and his gay lifestyle, and they believe me to be a hateful troglodyte. They all gave in to the emotional extortion, and they compromised their faith. Now, they think the Church is cruel for teaching that homosexuality is wrong, and only one of my five siblings even tries to go to Church anymore (occasionally). And, even he thinks the Church is wrong in it’s teachings on homosexuality. Most of my own family fundamentally misunderstands the true nature of love. Love is intimately related to TRUTH, whether or not its easy, hurtful or agonizingly difficult to stand up for it. It isn’t charitable (or nice, or accepting) to watch someone drive toward a cliff without telling them they are going to die on this road. And this death lasts for all eternity! Read Ezekiel 3:17-21! If the entire family had taken a stand, as St. Paul teaches, and told him that he is loved but henceforth excluded from the community (family) till he changed his evil ways, he might have taken my words (and my love) more seriously. He might have prayed and thought more about his actions and choices. But, since its only my parents and I standing athwart his lifestyle, he has become the social martyr and we are the “bad guys!” Now, confirmed in his sin, he has become an activist for gay marriage. His new community of gays and activists are fully accepting of him! He has a great job and lots of money! He is ‘married’ to his ‘partner,’ and still doesn’t understand why he isn’t happy. And, my siblings still try to console him in his misery without one of them praying for him or suggesting he try living according to God’s will instead of his own. All I can do now is pray for all of them. And, by the way, two of my nephews were repeatedly raped by a gay man when they were kids growing up in this ‘environment.’ I would say more, but I need to go pull some planks out of my own eyes….
Well thought out and persuasive piece. Thank you.
Thank you.