What's to explain?  It's a fallen world, many people have many problems.

Well, if we ever come across such people, what should we tell them if they inquire of us about the issue?

How should we explain the cases of those who are male or female but claim to be or want to be because they feel they should be the opposite gender?

Are you talking about those people who are born with (physically) ambiguous gender, or people who have chosen to become the opposite sex later in life?

How should we explain the cases of those who are male or female but claim to be or want to be because they feel they should be the opposite gender?

Well, in the Bible there is no choice "C" for gender. God made them male and female. So if you want to talk strictly in terms of the raw truth, then these people are simply not in touch with the reality of their bodies. For some reason, there is a kind of animosity there in the person's mind about what they physically are, and some kind of strange or abnormal idea about what the gender is that they think they are or want to be.

For instance, a man who likes to wear woman's clothes may claim he is a woman. If you could give that man a high dose of truth serum, and rip away all of the lies human beings sometimes convince themselves of to condone the things they do that bother their conscience, and you asked the man why he thought he was or wanted to be a woman, you would probably find the focus to be (in this case) upon an unnatural pleasure of wearing womens clothing. In another case, you might find the person's father was cruel to them, while their mother was nice, and so the opposite gender has for them nice and comforting feelings associated with them, while their own has nasty, cruel implications.

In all cases, though, I bet you'd find that it is grounded in an identifying with some quality they perceive in the opposite gender which they find comforting or good, and some idea of their own gender which is largely bad. They may say "oh, I have nothing against _whatever they are_, but... I just feel this way." But if they had nothing against what they were, they would not psychologically be trying to escape it.

The human mind is an incredible thing. But it will do everything it must in order to achieve optimum comfort or peace. (Partly why everybody's got a selfish streak they have to overcome.) If your mind recognizes there is a problem, or a source of mental discomfort, it will do everything in it's ability to ease or erase that problem. If a person develops in their childhood an idea that, for instance, "men are hard, cruel, unfeeling, bitter, nasty, etc..." and they are a man... and meanwhile they see women as "nice, pleasant, kind, generous, sweet, etc..." the mind is going to have to deal with that twisted view of the sexes. If the exaggeration of those traits which make up their view of the sexes isn't corrected with the reality early on, they may very well have problems with their gender. The subconscious mind is saying to itself, "Well, men are something BAD... but... wait... I'M a man! Well... I don't want to BE a man then! I want to be GOOD like women! Ok, so I'll BE a woman!" And so it proceeds to fixate on things which the person calls "being" that opposite gender.

They don't have to literally have that conversation with themselves in their head. The ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ doesn't have to either. But at some point, they've formed the idea that a certain gender is evil in some sense (or over all), and the other is better in some sense (or over all). In order for a human being to remain sane, either the idea has to be corrected in their thinking, or else their mind will simply twist and turn itself into knots until one is finally comfortable with themselves given the ideas that they have. So the woman that decides men are evil may end up a lesbian, and the man whose father was completely either cruel or absent to them, may try to be or wish he was a woman, for examples.

The reasoning is pretty sound here, I think, but I would also add that they CANNOT ADMIT that this is the case. If they admit that their ideas are wrong, then, their mind objects, they would have to BE (or be with, in the case of ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖs) that undesirable sex. So at all costs, their subconscious mind will fight to the death rather than admit that this is the case, precisely because they DO believe the things they do about the sexes. Thus they explain it in other ways, "I was born with the wrong body" (as if God could make a mistake!) or "I was born ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ" (as if God would make someone from their innocence to offend Him!).

There is nothing worse to either of these types of people, than to admit that their concepts of the genders, or of why they are the way they are, is wrong. Just try to challenge their delusions of what they are, and watch the bomb go off! The ɧoɱosɛҳųαƖ will NEVER admit (or at least very rarely) that they "chose to live in sin,"  and the person who wants to be or thinks they are the opposite gender will never admit that they "simply are the gender they are, body and soul," and that they "made the choice to be or play the other gender" because of the ideas they hold. Their explanations will always twist the reality, and excuse them from any guilt or responsibility of choice.

For that matter, alcoholics often cannot admit they are alcoholics, because along the same lines, THEY don't like the implications of the truth, that they have a problem, that they are responsible for their choices and actions, and that they need to stop their bad actions.

This is all simply my take on it though. I don't think the Church (in it's sane days) has made a pronunciation on these technicalities, so much as to condemn the actions of the people who are in that position. Sometimes it's a matter of people knowing they're doing something wrong or "sick" (since sin is not in the world's vocabulary), and choose to do it anyway because of the sheer pleasure factor, but often times I think it goes a lot deeper to, as I said above, their deepest ideas of the sexes, and the mind trying to deal with those ideas in such a way that they can live with what they are, or who they OUGHT to be with romantically (if anyone).

This post is somewhat graphic. Please pass it up if this is an occasion of sin to you!

 :shocked:

 Ok...

 On the issue of clothing... It may not be very harmful or particularly sinful for a woman to don men's blue jeans and a flannel button-down shirt (though this is probably still a sin against nature, because it helps the person to defy how God made them), when a man puts on women's clothes, we're now talking about physical stimulus... Not to be too graphic, but there is a trend in women's clothing to have softer or 'silky' materials. And while we women don't get excited by that, men will respond differently, because they ARE men.

 In fact, common transvestism often has very little to do with gender identity, and everything to do with the fact that the man gets physical pleasure by wearing certain types of women's clothing. Have you ever seen one of those TV specials on it? Many of them say "I have no problem with being a man. I just like to do this. If that's how I get my kicks, what's the problem?"

 So there is a whole different element present there for men then women. It is certainly not good for women to wear men's clothing (particularly if they feel like this) because in their case (unlike the wife who borrows hubby's bathrobe mornings) it helps them run away from the reality of what God made them, and the cross of having to acknowledge that, even against the ideas they may have formed of the sexes. With men it's much worse, because there is a clear element of sensuality there that does not exist for the women, for which cause many transvestites admit to be their sole reason for wearing women's clothes. For the man who feels like a women or wants to be one, then, the danger becomes double. Firstly it helps them to perpetuate their desired delusion and to defy the reality of what God made them (and run away from the cross of carrying it), and secondly, it can lead them into sɛҳuąƖ perversion, which is perhaps worse still.

 There are many sinful temptations or vices in life, in which people continue because they refuse to acknowledge that there is a problem, that what they are doing is not right or normal, HOWEVER they may feel inside, or whatever their lives have been like. One aspect of controlling ourselves in terms of temptation, is to realize and always be conscious of that there is a reality, a truth to every matter. When we deny the truth or the reality, and go by feelings, that is frequently when we fall into sin, and make really, really bad decisions in our lives. Feelings, however deep or subconscious, are not a license to run away from that reality, or to engage in whatever kind of behavior that will make us feel better, regardless of it's objective morality.

Of course, these people are certainly worthy of pity and compassion, and more importantly, in desperate need of prayers. Few people can so get hold of their emotions in this liberal, sentimental day and age, that they can totally deny their emotions in lieu of reason and perfect submission to God's will. Nevertheless, that is the goal for all of us. The order in which the mind of man must operate in order to optimize our chances of getting to heaven, and most efficiently and effectively practice virtue and avoid vice, is that first must come REASON and WILL... THEN... comes emotions. So long as the passions are not subject to the reason and will, and the reason is not submitting itself to reality and truth and to God's law... there can be no hope of effectively escaping something like this. There are situations like these, where our reason superseding our emotions is the only way for a person to get out of a serious moral danger.

In this case, the man who feels like or wants to be a woman, needs to have his concepts of the sexes corrected. Perhaps he thinks men are unfeeling jerks. But look at all of the male saints who were sensitive and compassionate and some of whom wept all the time over legitimate reasons like their sins. Perhaps they think being a woman is about "wearing soft, pretty things and being nice" ... well, wearing soft, pretty things might be sinfully exciting to you, but that's not what a woman is. I am NOT my pajamas or my dresses. And anyone who has seen how most women dress, versus how many transvestites like to, will tell you that the two are almost totally different. Not to mention the way the feminists dress and behave, which is neither pretty in dress, nor nice in attitude. There is a perverted idea of what women are, and what men are, in the minds of these people, which acts in their minds like a license to then go ahead and try to become the opposite gender, and to dress like them. Never mind that the majority will at some point try to run away from their problem by getting married and having kids.. in which case doing so poses a serious scandal to the children, and endangers their gender identities.

Saying "if wearing clothes of the opposite gender helps them..." is to ignore so many serious underlying problems and issues. If the clothes had no effect on them, their thinking, or anybody else, then perhaps... PERHAPS... it would not be sinful (though there is a passage in the Bible about men not putting on the things of a woman, or words to that effect, so I think it WOULD be sinful still) But since what we do definitely effects what we think, how we feel and even others around us, we can't really say that.