Is Technology Outpacing Our Ethics?
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - Rob Smith joins us again.
00:00:06.880 | Rob is a theologian who lectures in systematic theology
00:00:10.100 | and ethics at Sydney Missionary and Bible College
00:00:12.820 | in Australia.
00:00:14.500 | Rob, I have a lot of questions for you.
00:00:16.740 | Today I wanna talk technology first.
00:00:18.940 | It seems that earlier transgender discussion
00:00:22.080 | of maybe 30 years ago seemed especially to center
00:00:25.860 | on things like cross-dressing and external behaviors.
00:00:30.580 | With the rise of medical technology
00:00:33.140 | and the new possibilities for how our bodies
00:00:36.220 | can be physically rearranged,
00:00:38.380 | to what degree does technological advance
00:00:41.220 | drive the new possibilities and the new expectations
00:00:44.940 | of transgender changes within the body?
00:00:47.380 | - Yes, well, I think the answer is in a major way.
00:00:52.500 | It's the old thing of technology leading the way
00:00:57.500 | and morality having to catch up,
00:01:01.220 | which is really the wrong way of doing things.
00:01:03.500 | We often are asking, can we do this before we ask,
00:01:07.540 | should we do this?
00:01:08.540 | And so things get back to front.
00:01:12.480 | Again, just in terms of the history
00:01:15.040 | of sex reassignment surgery,
00:01:17.580 | I mean, there's about a century of attempts
00:01:20.220 | that have gone on here.
00:01:21.780 | And you're right, it's really in the last few decades
00:01:24.300 | that I think it's, I guess, become more possible
00:01:27.740 | and more successful.
00:01:29.940 | So all the issues, however, still go on.
00:01:32.820 | I mean, there's cross-dressing who have no desire
00:01:36.500 | to even engage in cross-hormone therapy,
00:01:39.480 | let alone sex reassignment surgery.
00:01:42.020 | And again, for some people with gender dysphoria,
00:01:44.500 | that's one of the ways they try to manage
00:01:46.460 | or partially resolve the distress
00:01:50.780 | is through, whether it's cross-dressing
00:01:54.060 | or simply some kind of gender bending.
00:01:57.740 | And so you get a whole range.
00:02:00.020 | I was watching some YouTube clips just a week or so ago
00:02:03.220 | of a number of people, a number of women
00:02:06.220 | who began on a sort of cross-hormone therapy,
00:02:12.380 | taking testosterone injections and so on,
00:02:15.980 | and then decided to stop and to go back.
00:02:20.820 | And so you get people who begin down the path
00:02:23.100 | and then retreat.
00:02:24.940 | And well, obviously in my view, a very good thing
00:02:28.900 | when they do that, if they've resolved their questions
00:02:31.820 | in the process.
00:02:32.860 | But I guess what's happening now more and more
00:02:36.480 | is that sex reassignment surgery is becoming available
00:02:40.540 | and affordable, and more and more doctors
00:02:43.740 | becoming able to deliver it.
00:02:47.500 | Although perhaps not enough to meet demand.
00:02:49.860 | I was reading an article just the other day from the UK
00:02:53.820 | where a urologist was complaining
00:02:56.580 | that not enough of his colleagues
00:02:58.940 | knew how to create a vagina.
00:03:01.180 | And so he was being inundated with requests
00:03:04.460 | for reconstructive surgery for men
00:03:08.660 | who wanted to transition into women.
00:03:11.320 | So yeah, I guess that's just where we are.
00:03:16.220 | All these medical advances, medical possibilities,
00:03:18.340 | surgical developments and so on going on.
00:03:21.620 | But I guess the question in back of all of that is,
00:03:24.860 | should we be doing this?
00:03:26.160 | Is this really an appropriate form of treatment
00:03:31.060 | for what is at heart a psychological condition?
00:03:35.700 | - Yeah, and as we mentioned earlier,
00:03:38.620 | I mean it raises the question over the purpose
00:03:40.900 | of medicine itself.
00:03:42.780 | So the goal of medicine is to fix an unhealthy body.
00:03:45.580 | So how much does gender reassignment put medicine
00:03:48.660 | into a tricky business of trying to fix a healthy body?
00:03:52.900 | - Well exactly, yeah.
00:03:54.100 | There's nothing wrong with the body.
00:03:57.700 | Again, unless we're dealing with a condition,
00:04:00.500 | an intersex condition where there is again some ambiguity
00:04:03.860 | and some need to resolve that ambiguity,
00:04:05.940 | which sometimes isn't.
00:04:07.220 | But again, if the body is straightforward and intact,
00:04:13.140 | then it really is I think going in the opposite direction
00:04:17.740 | to the Hippocratic principle of do no harm.
00:04:22.660 | You're now perhaps mutilating a perfectly healthy body
00:04:26.500 | to try and address a psychological problem.
00:04:28.740 | Now some would say, well that's the best option open.
00:04:33.180 | That's the only option open.
00:04:34.500 | Or unless we go this path,
00:04:37.460 | this person may take their own life.
00:04:39.380 | And perhaps if I'm just gonna pause on that point
00:04:42.660 | for a moment.
00:04:43.500 | - Yeah, certainly.
00:04:44.700 | - This is one of the things I think is driving
00:04:46.420 | the transgender revolution is what many call
00:04:49.660 | the suicide narrative.
00:04:51.580 | That unless we affirm and enable,
00:04:55.460 | we're gonna drive people into suicide.
00:04:57.620 | Now that's a heavy threat to hang over anyone's head,
00:05:02.620 | isn't it?
00:05:03.500 | - Yeah.
00:05:04.340 | - That's enough to make most people step out of the way.
00:05:06.460 | Now of course the reality is the instance of suicide
00:05:11.460 | or attempted suicide post transition
00:05:14.180 | is as high as it is pre transition.
00:05:16.340 | So there's no guarantee at all that allowing
00:05:21.340 | or encouraging somebody to try and transition
00:05:24.500 | is going to preserve their life in the longer term.
00:05:28.020 | And this is one of the reasons why Johns Hopkins University
00:05:32.140 | have ceased to do sex reassignment surgery.
00:05:34.620 | They just saw the outcomes were, didn't justify it.
00:05:39.100 | So again, there's a lot of misinformation
00:05:43.740 | and things that people have to wade through
00:05:47.060 | to get a clearer view.
00:05:50.220 | But obviously we want to know the best way to help people.
00:05:53.740 | And again, we ought to be filled with compassion
00:05:57.540 | for the genuine sufferer, a person with gender dysphoria
00:06:02.660 | who finds it almost intolerable to step out the front door
00:06:07.380 | and to look in a mirror.
00:06:08.980 | And that does beg the question, how do we help them?
00:06:11.780 | But I don't believe that encouraging or enabling them
00:06:15.060 | to try and become something that in the end
00:06:17.660 | they can't actually become is the way to do it.
00:06:21.300 | If there's depression, if there's anxiety,
00:06:23.980 | if there's a range of other things going on,
00:06:25.500 | let's try and deal with those first.
00:06:27.500 | Let's try and provide the help that's necessary
00:06:30.980 | for this person to function.
00:06:32.980 | But again, it's not simple.
00:06:35.780 | And it'd be lovely to have silver bullets
00:06:38.380 | and easy answers and quick fixes.
00:06:40.740 | It's just not like that.
00:06:42.580 | - No, it is certainly not.
00:06:45.420 | Thank you, Rob.
00:06:46.260 | And for more on the statistics here,
00:06:48.980 | see the op-ed by the former psychiatrist in chief
00:06:51.640 | at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Paul McHugh.
00:06:55.420 | He wrote a Wall Street Journal piece
00:06:56.860 | titled "Transgender Surgery Isn't the Solution."
00:07:00.620 | It's a fascinating read.
00:07:02.940 | You can find it online.
00:07:04.160 | And we have addressed suicide on the podcast in the past.
00:07:08.060 | See episode number 352,
00:07:09.700 | which is titled "Suicide and Salvation."
00:07:13.340 | Heavy.
00:07:14.180 | Well, the week is coming to an end
00:07:16.980 | and so is our time with Rob.
00:07:18.540 | And we return tomorrow to look at the hopes
00:07:20.780 | and the tensions and the roadblocks faced
00:07:22.860 | by those who are pursuing transgender transitions.
00:07:26.400 | Thank you for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast
00:07:28.200 | with guest Rob Smith from Sydney, Australia.
00:07:30.460 | For more details about the podcast,
00:07:31.860 | to subscribe to the audio feed or send us a question,
00:07:34.540 | go to our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.
00:07:39.180 | I am your host, Tony Reinke, and we will see you tomorrow.
00:07:42.100 | (upbeat music)
00:07:44.680 | (upbeat music)
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