Entry 588 - Entry 589

Entry 588 - Living with Gender Incongruence

7/5/21 - Gender Incongruence and the Journey to Authenticity

Gender Incongruence is a medically recognized condition where someone doesn’t feel aligned with their body. There could be many reasons for this: whether someone is considered intersex at birth, having one of the other six potential sex chromosomal variations, or simply their own internal knowing that their body doesn’t align correctly with the gender they identify with in their brain.

It’s very hard to express what it’s like to be transgender to someone who is not, but I’ll try my best. Outwardly, it may look like I’m “trying” to be a dude, but what you don’t see is that inwardly, I have always been that dude. Some people argue that there are masculine women and feminine men, but what they don’t understand is that for trans people, having Gender Incongruence is not about masculine or feminine energy.

Ultimately, it is a diagnosable medical condition with genuine steps to alleviate chronic stress and restore alignment of gender identity with the brain and body. Living with it untreated, it feels like a disconnect from my brain and body. In a short circuit scenario, it can feel like one of those movies where the man gets trapped in a woman's body or vice versa. It's very shocking to live this way. It almost feels as if I've been playing a very long game of "pretend." Before transitioning, one could feel as if they should have certain body parts as if it exists as a "phantom limb," but they don't. They could feel as if their body should look a certain way, but by default, it doesn't.

Transgender people only comprise about 0.5% of the United States population. According to a survey conducted by The Trevor Project, more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth in the U.S. have “seriously considered” taking their own lives in the past 12 months.

Trans people, though small in number, should not feel less than people who do not deal with this condition, even when society tries to make us feel that way. We are a positive anomaly, testing the boundaries of duality constantly through our bodily autonomy. Being true to ourselves, choosing to do what is healthiest for our bodies, and living authentically inspires many who may have chosen not to live their truth in other areas of life. We stand as humans who express our truth, regardless of what religion says about us.

Transgender people may feel chronic stress from this misalignment between their body and brain, so naturally, they will seek treatment for the condition. Many decide to undergo medical treatment called Hormone Replacement Therapy and surgeries for further alignment. Hormone Replacement Therapy is designed to make the primary sex characteristics secondary and the secondary sex characteristics primary. Once one gets surgery, the changes will be permanent, and for many, they will completely alleviate the chronic stress associated with having Gender Incongruence.

After years of repression, I have watched the pain of my non-acceptance manifest through unnecessary medical afflictions, so now, after uncovering that repression and accepting who I am, I am making the move to do what is healthiest for me and my body by undergoing Hormone Replacement Therapy and surgeries to help me transition to a body I feel more aligned with.

The changes from Hormone Replacement Therapy certainly will not happen overnight, but changes will come. My voice will change, my skin will change, my fat distribution throughout my body will change, and much more. I know without a doubt this is the healthiest choice I can make for myself. People may try to throw their judgments in my face, expressing doom and gloom, but in the end, I know my relationship with God, I know my intentions are for my health, and I know 100% this is the best thing I can do for myself.

I see my transition as a part of my deeper calling on Earth: to help other people, to be a voice for the voiceless, and to show that if I can be true to myself regardless of who tries to damn me to hell, then you can too. If I can live joyfully with the fruits of the Spirit, love God, love myself, and love my neighbor, then you can too. We may not all share the same stories, but if I can transition from a masked and inauthentic life to a free, open, and true version of myself, then you can too. It may not be a bodily transition for everyone, but any transition from inauthenticity to authenticity and honoring who you truly are is a beautiful decision, and I applaud you.

It’s about feeling like your body does not align with your brain. Dressing or acting a certain way doesn’t solve gender dysphoria; trans people still feel uncomfortable with their current body parts. I’ve spent the past 25 years repressing this part of who I am in the name of my religion and a promise of admittance into heaven at the expense of my own bodily health. Now, with acceptance of who I am, that chain of pain ends today.

Through hormones, a transgender person can transition into a body they love, feel comfortable in, and that fits who they feel they are on the inside. When I go through this process myself, it doesn't mean I magically change my sex chromosome and become a biological man. But it does mean that now I feel more at home, having further alignment between my body and brain that I did not have before.

I deeply appreciate all the love and support from my friends and family who, even if they don’t fully understand, still trust me when I say this is the best path for me. For those who judge me and condemn me—without understanding this medical condition and its intensity—I leave the door open for them to walk out of my life. I love everyone regardless, but I will not spend any more time hurting myself by repressing who I am in the name of one denomination of Christianity out of 41,000 others, nor will I allow people to convince me to harm myself by telling me not to get medical help for this medical condition.

In the end, all we have is each other, and I hope we can grow together rather than apart. I understand this explanation still won’t be enough for everyone, but I hope my truth will inspire others to dissolve judgment and replace it with love because any second worth loving is a second not wasted. And if you ever feel compelled to judge me or any other transgender person, remember: God will do a much better, fairer job of judging than we ever could, so I recommend leaving that to God. Much love.

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Entry 589 - Christian Apologetics 

7/5/21

First of all, I am not pro- or anti-religion; I am simply pro-questioning and advocate using critical thinking skills for all systems of thought, including religion. Many people have been conditioned by religion to use questioning and critical thinking skills only within the boundaries that a particular denomination has allowed. That church may then use scare tactics, such as the fear of hell, to prevent members from questioning beyond their biases and “approved areas for critical thinking.”

What I mean by this is that within our megachurch denomination, we often received books that encouraged us to consider our current state of “hope,” or, as they called it, our Hope Quotient. They also provided other books that prompted us to reflect on our relationships with family members and friends. When it came to apologetics, the church presented pre-packaged, polished answers that “defended the faith,” but in reality, these answers were designed to address only the questions that did not challenge the denomination or Christianity in general. Essentially, even when our questions came close to challenging their boundaries, the church provided ready-made answers instead of encouraging us to consider all perspectives. Our questions and the corresponding answers were already biased toward the religious denomination’s beliefs before we even asked them.

For example, in the grand megachurch Bayside, there was an apologetics conference I attended. As a high school student, I was super excited to learn effective rebuttals against those who didn’t share our faith and attended as many sessions as possible. One session focused on the accuracy of the Bible. Looking back, it’s funny, but at the time, I didn’t realize that the way they presented this topic was meant to guide us to questions they wanted to answer and to think critically within their biases. For instance, when discussing the validity of the Bible, they emphasized that the scriptures are accurate because we have many copies, which, according to them, provided a compelling statistic that supported the claim of authenticity. However, they used biased language, saying things like, “With these statistics and the number of copies we have, we know it is true, and God did preserve His word.” All the questions were framed around the belief that the Bible is true, based on a statistic that focused on copies of copies and ignored the absence of originals.

If they had genuinely allowed for critical thinking and discussion beyond the boundaries they had created, they would have included an atheist alongside a Christian to provide a broader perspective. The atheist could have highlighted contradictions in the Bible, while the Christian would try to reconcile them. The atheist might have pointed out that we have no original manuscripts, making it difficult to conclude their accuracy definitively, and the Christian would argue that God still preserved His word. The atheist could have mentioned instances of jealousy, wrath, anger, genocide, slavery, and unequal laws attributed to the Creator, while the Christian might have focused on verses about God’s love and compassion. Such a format would genuinely challenge the audience to consider multiple viewpoints and expand their understanding.

Most of my friends follow this controlled format for questioning and critically thinking about their Christian denomination. They only read “pre-approved church material” or books biased toward their denomination’s interpretation of the Bible. When I ask if they have read books from other perspectives, such as those of other religions or atheists, they usually say no. Am I surprised? Not at all. That’s how their religious denomination has conditioned them—and they did an effective job of it. Most of them are terrified to step beyond the boundaries their religious denomination has drawn.