Choose Life Australia

 
Filed on 21 November 2018 in Food For Thought category. Print This Page

A reflection.
Depression. Identifying “causes”. Gender identity.
On headtohealth.gov.au

A necessary reminder that God is in charge.

When I received another invite to talk about depression I thought OK Lord, if this is really what you want me to talk about then I am very happy to do that, but I did wonder if it might not be a higher priority to talk about freedom of speech and belief and the threats to our Christian schools and sexual indoctrination of our children and preparing our children for the future etc etc. The answer was clear that I was to trust that God was and is in charge of the agenda and that He had His purposes. Be content. Enjoy.

And enjoy I did. It was a very good Saturday morning with morning tea, a good attendance of a lively group of families with small children happily engaged in a corner and a few septogenarians like myself. A very responsive group. A very productive use of a Saturday morning.

How slow I am. Two surprises came out of my essential and routine last-minute revision and preparation. Yes, Lord God, You are supreme – how could I ever doubt it?

Depression. Identifying “causes”. Gender identity.

From my notes on Understanding Depression – A Christian Perspective:

There is something terrifyingly illogical about depression as Spurgeon said “causeless depression is not to reasoned with”.  Of course, people frequently look for a cause and sometimes they might define some very real causes of difficulty, for instance, they might say “I am feeling like this because of my job which I don’t enjoy”, and then leave that job and find that they feel no better.  The tragedy is that sometimes people make significant life decisions while depressed – marriages can break-up, people can shift homes or put themselves at positions of risk when a careful analysis of the situation would show that the depression was not substantially related to these problems.  So, it is extremely important to tell people who are depressed not to make significant life decisions without adequate counselling.

Feeling bad, not sure why, identifying “causes” and then making life-changing decisions based on those “causes”. Occupations changed, marriages left, other “wrong” actions on the basis of wrongful assumptions of cause.

Well recognised in a person with depression. Informative counselling and even direction (at the risk of accusations of being paternalistic) is essential in addition to treatment. For the doctor or counsellor to fail this responsibility is not good medicine.

We do not manage such crises by affirmation of pending decisions including suicide.

Similarly, and particularly when clusters of children wishing to transgender on the basis of bad feelings (“so this is what I must do”), to affirm this wish without even exploration of the bad feelings is bad “therapy” or bad medicine. Such affirmation without exploration and without the essential information that 80% will spontaneously “revert” to biological sex before adulthood should result in condemnation rather than the opposite push that is now happening.

MPs of Victoria and other legislatures, please wake up to the falsehoods of these matters before introducing laws that criminalise essential analysis, information giving, reassurance and affirmation of biological sex.

On headtohealth.gov.au

In my depression file I found some resource cards for the government website Head to Health. It is very comprehensive and mostly very good except for the section on transgenders and one of the resource links https://headspace.org.au/young-people/gender-identity-and-mental-health/ .

This site uses the term “sex assigned at birth” assuming that biological sex can be chosen or assigned (!) and then moves on to “gender they were assigned” as if changing the one can change the other. The spectrum of masculine and feminine behavioural characteristics is wide and can be modified by choice within the bi-polarity (“binary”) of male and female but apart from the small group of “intersex” e.g. those with XXY genetic pattern (approx. 0.1% of population) there is no spectrum of biological sex.

Missing is the essential bit of information that “you may find these feelings change over time as they do in about 4 out of 5 young people anyway – without any pressure at all” and that it is OK to allow the feelings without feeling a freak and without feeling any compulsion or need to change biological sex.

Further, that attempting to change biological sex to rigid binary anatomical male and female is missing the point of there being a spectrum of genders with which they can identify.

The site does not give any hint that acceptance of your feelings does not commit – as some would urge – to a pathway of hormones and or surgery to change anatomical appearance to the opposite sex.

The site doesn’t even mention exploration of feelings and possible contributing factors that might lead to “oh, so that’s why I feel like this” and a realisation that they do not “need” to follow a transgender pathway.