Transcript: Lesson 32 - Levels of treatment

Friends, welcome. In this unit, we're thinking about what it means to be the family of God and  to walk well with transgender people. We've been talking already in the last couple of units  about how when we think about LGBT+ people, we're not just talking about people out there  outside the church. But in fact, largely, we're actually talking to you about people who are  already in the church or who have grown up in church. And so I want to be clear that as we  walk through this, that this is not in any way, an us versus them. But it's actually us together,  how can we together encourage each other bear each other's burdens and, and walk with  each other well, as we seek to follow Jesus. Now in this video, I just want to talk for a couple  of minutes about possible levels of treatment ways that Mark Yarhouse and his book,  "Understanding Gender Dysphoria" talks about ways that we can walk alongside people who  are struggling with gender dysphoria, and to think about what that looks like for us as  Christians. Now, Yarhouse knows, notes that for some, not for all, and probably not even for  the majority. But as you walk with people who experienced gender dysphoria, one possibility  is that as they continue walking that journey, is that they end up resolving this conflicted  sense of identity, by essentially having their internal gender identity come into congruence  with their birth, sex, or their biological sex. So that part of what happens here is that people,  people grow into a greater level of comfort with identifying in that way, and there's a sense of congruence between their biological sex in their own sense of gender. And part of that, again,  go back to how you define somebody who's transgender could be somebody who really  wrestles with stereotypes, and thinking about whether or not they fit into those, and growing  in terms of saying, Look, maybe in terms of cultural stereotypes, yeah, I have these quote,  unquote, more, more masculine dimensions. But the more I think about what Scripture  actually teaches, and understanding myself, I realized that a lot of times those cultural  stereotypes, so those aren't masculine characteristics, those are just human characteristics  that some humans have and that both men and women do have, in some degree, some way,  shape, or form. And so resolving incongruence with birth, sex, is one option. Yarhouse notes  that in different people, you know, as you think about this, different people might be reacting  differently or thinking we should never do that, or how does that fit with, with, with what  Christians should believe we're going to get into the theology a little bit in the next video as  we process this, but Yarhouse is just talking about ways that that help to address gender  dysphoria. And one of those ways that he notes for some people is by engaging in cross  dressing behaviors, or roles intermittently. And so he says, in a lot of ways, our sense of  gender identity can often be connected with certain clothing. And so he says, if it's if it's  helpful for some people, even in the privacy of their own home, to dress in a way that that fits more with their gender identity, rather than with their biological sex, that that can for some  folks, be helpful in alleviating just some of the distress that comes with gender dysphoria. He  says that is one way that people will help to limit the effects of gender dysphoria, that that  seems at least for some, to help diminish the distress that that's experienced, even if they for  the most part in their day to day life, continue to go about things in ways that they would  present more in line with their biological sex rather than with their own internal sense of  gender. So that's, that's another level of treatment. He does note and this is, this is part of the reading for this section, as well as getting into some of the understanding a little bit better,  what's involved with things like hormone therapy and sex reassignment surgery, that for  some, it is this complete adoption of cross gender role of identity that this is what people talk  about in terms of, of transitioning from male to female or female to male. And so this is one  path that people do take to help alleviate gender dysphoria as they move forward. Now,  again, one of the articles you're going to be reading for this time, there's there is this  recognition that surgery sex reassignment surgery, can have some effects but it's, it is  something that is debated somewhat, how much hormone therapy and sex reassignment  surgery do help. On the whole, right there might help some individuals, but maybe not others  so much. And so as we reflect on sex reassignment surgery, there are a couple of questions  going on here. And these go back to some of the medical ethics questions we discussed in the previous unit. Part of what we have to wrestle with here is, is sex reassignment surgery, is  that remedial or is it elective? In other words, from a, from a purely biological standpoint, a  purely medical standpoint, looking at a person's body? I think most people would say, Well, 

it's, it's not remedial, in a it's not trying to fix something that's gone on physically. But rather,  what is being treated here is, again, it's more of an internal if we want to say it this way  psychological or psychiatric condition. And so part of the debate among among doctors and  among medical professionals is, is it valid to treat a psychological or psychiatric condition  through a biological physical surgery. And so this, again, I think, for those, think about how  this maps onto the different stories that we've talked about, for those in our culture, who buy  into the story of materialism, that our bodies are nothing but but matter, that they that they  don't have any meaning that it's, it's sort of up to us to mold and reshape our bodies to kind  of do with them what we want, then it seems very obvious, that it would be okay to just  change our bodies, as much as possible to bring them in line with our own internal sense of  gender. However, if we think about our bodies in a different way, if we recognize that who we  are, as male and female, are made in the image of God, and that, that our bodies aren't just  mere matter. But there's this deeper spiritual dimension to who we are, then in some ways  that that puts the brakes on a little bit toward this posture that says, you can just alter your  body through hormone therapy or alter your body through sex reassignment surgery. I think  it's also really important to again to think about what this surgery is or is not doing. Now,  many advocates for intersex people are actually very strongly against surgery for intersex  infants, and children where maybe there's some ambiguity. Okay, so let's think about our  discussion last time. And part of what they say is that we have to recognize that surgery  doesn't decide or cement gender identity. This is in part why some doctors, and maybe even  parents are kind of eager to have surgery for young children with disorders of sex  development, that is, if we just have surgery, then they can just clearly identify as male or  female, and move on with it. And part of what has has happened again, as intersex people  have grown and and developed is it's become clear that they have undergone surgery that  sort of assign them gender as male or female, that actually didn't align with their their sense  of gender identity as they grew and developed. And so because of that, people within the  intersex community have been very cautious about looking to technology looking to medical  technology or surgery as as a kind of savior for people. And so I think it's, it's a little bit  unfortunate, then that people within that would advocate for surgery for transgender people  would do so with the mindset that well, somebody just gets surgery, then that's going to  decide that's going to cement their gender identity, because what we've seen from intersex  people is that's not in fact, the case. And so we have to be, we have to be careful here when  we think about technology as Savior, that the technology is just going to fix this. Because at  least as far as I can tell from the studies that have been done, it does help some people but it  doesn't help others. And so these are intensive procedures, these are things that are life  changing. And so we should be very careful about just embracing them because we're  assuming that surgery or technology is going to change everything. We also have to think  about if you if we look at surgery in this light and say okay, at the at the end of the day, it is  more of an elective surgery. It's it's not remedying something that's gone wrong physically.  Either. We have to ask questions about consistency with other elective procedures. You know,  we have to think about when something is medically necessary, and especially for doctors  and medical professionals to understand the difference between something just being  remedial and something being elective that we wouldn't say, you know, if I just went to the  hospital and asked for a surgery, that was a that was elective, you know, my doctor is actually probably going to ask me some pretty difficult questions about why you want the surgery and  go through some pretty detailed processes before heading into that. Now, that is part of the  protocol for sex reassignment surgery the APA has outlined, you know, there's that they want  to be very cautious about this as well. And so those kind of safeguards are in place. But we  have to reflect here as we think about altering our bodies, that that's a big deal. And when we think about specifically, altering our bodies and thinking about ourselves as male or female,  part of what these surgeries accomplishes, it doesn't, at the end of the day, decide or cement  our gender identity, so we have to be cautious about what it can or can't do. So as we as we  head into the next video, we're going to be moving beyond some of these more practical  concerns, and thinking about theological reflections on the experience of being transgender, 

and understanding what scripture has to say to this, and thinking again, about how we can all  walk with each other as the family of God. So until next time, blessings