Trans-Species & Trans-Racial: Divorcing Truth from Reality

From the earliest of ages, some individuals are convinced that their gender and their body are misaligned. CBS News reports, “An 8-year-old second-grader in Los Angeles is a typical patient. Born a girl, the child announced at 18 months, ‘I a boy’ and has stuck with that belief.”^[1] Such testimonies are becoming increasingly common, and they are giving rise to ethical and legal dilemmas. Children in the United States as young as four have received sex change therapy, beginning with psychological counseling, followed by hormone blockers when puberty begins, and the option of sex-reassignment surgery when they come of age.^[2] Furthermore, in the state of Oregon, 15-year-old children can now receive a sex change operation without parental consent or notice, and the State will pay for it through its Medicaid Oregon Health Plan.^[3]

In the most extreme cases of gender dysphoria, individuals are not content to merely present as the gender of their choice. Instead, they choose to undergo sex-reassignment surgery. This may involve top surgery, bottom surgery, or both. Psychiatrist Dr. Jack Drescher comments:

[Gender dysphoria is] different from other mental disorders. Usually with a mental disorder, we try and change the person’s mind. This is the only mental disorder where the treatment is changing the body. In a typical mental disorder, we try to make those symptoms go away. Here the treatment has emerged to align the person’s body to match their gender identity.^[4]

According to the Encyclopedia of Surgery, “The number of gender reassignment procedures conducted in the United States each year is estimated at between 100 and 500. The number worldwide is estimated to be two to five times larger.”^[5]

Where such exist, pre-requisites for sex-reassignment surgery do not require objective evidence that the individual is trapped within the wrong body. Instead, the recommendation of mental health specialists and a history of hormonal therapy qualify as sufficient evidence.^[6] This is because there is no objective standard for determining whether an individual’s gender identity is misaligned with their physical body. In answer to the question, “How do I know if I’m transgender?” LPC and gender therapist Dara Hoffman-Fox suggests, “Does it feel like your physical body matches the gender that you can tell you are in your brain?”^[7] Somehow personal and subjective feelings have become the standard for determining the medical necessity of sex-reassignment surgery. This is because the assumption is that the way an individual feels about themselves is the highest standard for determining reality. Moreover, nobody has the right to question anyone’s personal feelings about themselves … at least when it comes to the subject of gender identity.

With such a malleable standard, it is not surprising to find that people self-identify as far more than the opposite sex. There are numerous growing subcultures of individuals who believe themselves to be trans labeled. Former National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) chapter president Rachel Dolezal created a national controversy in 2015 when it was discovered that she had no African-American ancestry. Her parents are primarily of Czech, German, and Swedish origins; nevertheless, Dolezal considers herself to be transracial and informed Matt Lauer at Today, “I identify as black.”^[8][9] She explained that as early as the age of five, “I was drawing self-portraits with the brown crayon instead of the peach crayon, and black curly hair.”^[10]

Similarly, transabled individuals identify with the physically handicapped. Also known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, Alexandre Baril explains, “We define transability as the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment … The person could want to become deaf, blind, amputee, paraplegic. It’s a really, really strong desire.”^[11]

Amber Shuping believes herself to be transabled. She made international headlines when she allowed a sympathetic psychologist to pour drain cleaner into both of her eyes. From the time she was a little girl, Amber had dreamed of being blind, and she felt compelled to bring her body into conformity with her identity.^[12]

When identity is divorced from objective reality, anything becomes possible. Fictives are people who believe “their true identity is a fictional character, often from a series of fantasy novels or a Japanese role-playing game.”^[13] Similarly, according to the book Otherkin Timeline, “People who call themselves otherkin (meaning “kin to the other”) look human, but identify as supernatural entities ordinarily thought of as legendary or mythological, most commonly elves, Fae, and dragons, but many other kinds of creatures are represented as well.”^[14] These individuals believe they have been born into the wrong body.^[15]

Richard Hernandez is a Fictive who believes he is truly a female dragon named Eva Tiamat Medusa. The Daily Mail reports:

A transgender former banker claims to be the first and only person to have both ears cosmetically removed as part of her ongoing quest to become a “dragon”. … the 55-year-old has undergone a number of painful procedures over the past few years including nose modification, tooth extraction and eye colouring. She also has a forked tongue and a full-face tattoo as part of her transformation into a “mythical beast”. … She has also had horns implanted onto her forehead, and tattoos and scarification on her face and chest that resemble reptilian scales. … On her website, Tiamat explains: “I am the Dragon Lady, A pre-op M2F (male to female) transgender in the process of morphing into a human dragon, becoming a reptoid as I shed my human skin and my physical appearance and my life as a whole leaving my humanness behind.” She adds that she wants to embrace her “most natural self awareness as a mythical beast.”^[16]

Likewise, there is a growing community of individuals who believe they suffer from species dysphoria.^[17] According to Otherkin Timeline, “People who call themselves therianthropes (meaning ‘animal people’) look human, but identify as animals, most commonly wolves or felines, but many other kinds of animals are represented as well.”^[18] At the age of sixteen, a woman in Norway “discovered” that she is truly a cat who was born into a human body. The Telegraph reports:

She has a superior sense of hearing and sight which allows her to hunt mice in the dark. … The young woman shows off her cat characteristics by wearing fake ears and an artificial tail. She communicates by meowing. … The cat woman wears a pair of pink fluffy paws with which to groom herself, and feels especially like doing so when she is in contact with water. When asked if she was born as the wrong species, she said: “Yes, born in the wrong species.”^[19]

As with those who suffer from gender dysphoria, Daniel Greenfield reports, “Transpecies Americans create special pronouns for themselves and insist that refusing to pretend that they’re cats or wolves is a hate crime.”^[20] Fundamentally, what is different between a transspecies individual who seeks affirmation of their animal identity because they wear tails, ears, and paws in public and a transgender individual who seeks affirmation of their gender identity because they wear clothes and paraphernalia of that gender in public? Fundamentally, what is different from a transable individual who feels compelled to damage parts of their body in order to bring it into conformity with their handicap identity and a transgender individual who feels compelled to undergo hormone injections and surgery to bring their body into conformity with their gender identity? Fundamentally, what is different between a transracial individual who knows they are African-American because they drew pictures of themselves with brown skin and curly hair when they were five and a transgender individual who knows they are the other gender because they preferred to dress and play with the toys of that gender since they were very young?

When reality is divorced from objective truth, anything becomes possible.

Be sure to Read Timothy Zebell’s book Transitioning: A Biblical Understanding of Transgenderism.