After the sensational revelation of William Bruce Jenner (born October 28, 1949), the handsome American “macho” track and field super athlete and TV personality, that he was a transgender, an international discussion ensued about LGBT – lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender.
At the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Jenner won the gold medal in the decathlon, which catapulted him to the international pinnacle of fame. He was married to Kris Jenner of the Kardashian TV-fame for about 24 years and they were divorced in 2015. It was then that Bruce came out openly as a transgender, but maintained he was always and still is attracted to women. In his TV interview with Dianne Sawyer, he stated that his soul and mind told him he “is a woman,” that he was not a woman trapped inside a man’s body. He related that he had struggled with this painful identity crisis since he was a young man. Bruce, who has two previous marriages, has two children with each of the three women he had married. Choosing the name Caitlin now, Bruce has been on the cover of magazines, posing as a seductive “new woman.”
Definition of terms
Gynephilic is a man attracted to women. A gay (androphilic) is a man attracted to men. Females attracted to males and males attracted to females are called “straight.” A lesbian is a woman attracted to women. Bisexual is an individual attracted to both men and women but not equally or simultaneously. Transgender people are those “whose gender identity, expression and/or behavior is different from those typically associated with their assigned sex at birth…” The word “transgender” is correctly used as an adjective and not a noun; thus, “trangender people or persons” is appropriate but “trangenders” as a noun is disrespectful and derogatory. And so with the other sexual orientation words like “fag or faggot, queers, homo, sodomite, dyke…”
Medical science
Due to ignorance and unfounded bias, the old and cruel perception labeled these individuals with gender identity problem as “crazy, or sick, or mentally deranged.” Countless studies over the past century have proven otherwise.
One of the major data collection programs of the National Center for Health Statistics, which is a part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS).
In the past four and a half decades, “the consensus of the behavioral and social sciences and the health and mental health professions globally is that homosexuality is a healthy variation of human sexual orientation,” with the American Psychiatric Association declassifying homosexuality as a mental disorder, deleting it from the list of illnesses.
According to published medical literature, “the body of current research and clinical literature supports a consensus that same-sex sexual and romantic attractions, feelings, and behaviors are healthy variations of human sexuality, and is reflected in the official positions of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association.”
In 1975, the American Psychological Association, in a resolution, “urges all mental health professionals to take the lead in removing the stigma of mental illness that has long been associated with homosexual orientation”
No one really knows why an individual turns out to be gay, bisexual or straight. It could be biological or psychological or a variety of other factors. The main point here is that we do not choose (or have the power) to be straight, gay, or bisexual.
Understanding and tolerance
Now that the world is more educated, more cultured, better informed and more scientific compared to the era of witches, vampires, snake oils, and abominable barbarism, the regard and treatment of persons born with physical or physiological handicap (like those with Down’s syndrome, etc.), or with different sexual orientation than our own, are changing with an apologetic retraction and compassion for these, our long suffering fellow men and women.
If you think about it, none of them willed or chose to be in their gender dilemma. It is not their fault that they are saddled with an added cross to bear. Their internal struggle and pain day and night are unimaginable. They were born with such nature, as we with ours. Why ostracize them and treat them with disdain?
Casting aside science for a moment and invoking religion in this issue, it is easy for those of us who believe God is the creator of the universe, including all the peoples on earth, that these human beings, albeit different from us in sexual orientation, are, like us, a creation of The Almighty, individuals we must accept, respect, and love.
Imagine if you are one, or if you have a child or a relative with any of these gender issues, constantly struggling with an inner conflict and suffering every second of life because society is intolerant and unkind, how would you feel?
If we have to judge
Our concern as a society must be focused on what really counts, like character, behavior, discipline, and action. So long as the person is decent, law-abiding, of good moral character, compassionate, and a responsible member of the community, I do not care whether he/she is black, white, green or purple, or of a different religion and creed than mine, or of a variant sexual orientation.
To ridicule or hate or be indifferent to a person simply because he/she is not heterosexual like you is clearly uncharitable, unjust, and cruel. The only justifiable bases for such negative “judgmental” reactions are on any breaches of our moral and legal codes, and not on their gender orientation. Let’s us regard and judge them on the same bases and criteria as we regard and judge ourselves.
As we try to move forward for world peace among all peoples, or even peace on the home front, perhaps we could start with the one little step of bridging the variant gender gap in our own backyard, a village at a time, with understanding, acceptance, and compassion for our fellow creations of God.
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Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus in Northwest Indiana and chairman of cardiac surgery from 1997 to 2010 at Cebu Doctors University Hospital, where he holds the title of Physician Emeritus in Surgery, is based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, the Philippine College of Surgeons, and the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society. He is the chairman of the Filipino United Network – USA, a 501(c)(3) humanitarian foundation in the United States. Email: [email protected]
