Denver Newsroom, May 5, 2020 / 02:52 am (CNA).- Pope St. John Paul II, who led the Catholic Church from 1978 until his death in 2005, is perhaps one of the most compelling figures of the 20th century.
Born nearly 100 years ago on May 18, 1920 in Wadowice, Poland, Karol Woytila— the future pope— endured the loss of most of his family, clandestinely studied for the priesthood while his country was under Nazi rule, and rose through the Church hierarchy while never ceasing to encourage his Polish countrymen to keep the faith while resisting Communist pressure.
He participated in the Second Vatican Council and, upon his election as pope, became the most widely-traveled pontiff ever and likely the most-seen person in the history of the world. He was an academic, and widely regarded as a genius, but also a man of simplicity and humility.
He survived a brutal assassination attempt in 1981, crediting Mary’s intercession for his survival and extending forgiveness to his attacker.
“He’s the exemplar of the fact that a life wholly dedicated to Jesus Christ and the Gospel is the most exciting human life possible,” George Weigel, John Paul II’s biographer, told CNA.
“This man lived a life of such extraordinary drama that no Hollywood scriptwriter would dare come up with such a storyline. It would just be regarded as absurd.”
His compelling life story has been told and retold many times, including on the big screen.
But did you know that John Paul II’s life story was once the subject of a Marvel comic book?
Printed in full color and featuring dramatic, stylish visuals, the 1982 comic chronicles the pope’s life, from his childhood in Poland all the way up to the attempt on his life by a would-be assassin.
Marvel, which Disney purchased in a multi-billion dollar acquisition in 2009, is one of the largest entertainment companies in the world, and the purveyor of such iconic characters as Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Captain America.
So what persuaded the Marvel executives to green-light a comic book about the then newly-elected pope?
‘Marvel’s Man in Japan’
It all started with Gene Pelc— a New Yorker and Marvel representative living in Japan.
Pelc— whose wife is Japanese— had moved to Japan in the 1970s in order to report back to Marvel on how the comic book company could adapt its products for a Japanese audience.
Pelc was tasked with licensing Spider-Man to play on Japanese television, and was largely successful at what he did, earning the moniker “Marvel’s Man in Japan.”
Pelc told CNA that he and his family went— and still go— to Mass at the Franciscan Chapel Center, a community of English-speaking priests in Tokyo.
Japan was then— and remains today— a very non-Christian country, with Catholics comprising less than half of 1% of the population.
One day, a priest named Father Campion Lally approached Pelc at the Franciscan Chapel Center with an unusual proposition. The eight-hundredth anniversary of St. Francis’ birth was coming up in 1982, Fr. Lally said…what if, to commemorate it, Marvel produced a comic book about the life of St. Francis?
Pelc liked the idea, and wondered whether it would prove popular amongst Catholics in the US. Fr. Lally was adamant, however, that the comic be marketed to non-Catholics as well.
“The real reason I want this done is to reach an audience the Church doesn’t normally reach,” Pelc remembers Fr. Lally saying.
“’I want to take St. Francis out of the birdbath’ was his exact comment.”
Pelc called up Stan Lee— a legendary Marvel comic book publisher— who apparently liked the idea. But when Pelc pitched the idea to the higher-ups at Marvel, they weren’t quite so supportive at first.
“They all said: Gene, you’ve been in Japan too long. No one wants to hear about that. They want to hear about superheroes,” Pelc remembers the executives telling him.
Pelc was able to appeal to the financial sensibilities of the executives to help his case, however— the Paulist Press, a U.S.-based Catholic publisher, had expressed interest in purchasing some 250,000 copies of the comic upon its release.
Needless to say, the prospect of a minimum of 250,000 copies sold— when a popular comic at the time could be expected to sell around 150,000 copies— was enough to sway the executives to approve the project.
Father Roy Gasnick, a Franciscan priest and director of communications based in New York, helped Marvel writer Mary Jo Duffy to write the story of St. Francis’ life for the comic. Fr. Gasnik was, by all accounts, a massive comic book fan himself.
Then the artists at Marvel did their magic, and produced the comic entitled “Francis: Brother of the Universe,” which hit stores in 1980.
Helped by the Paulist Press’ large order, “Brother of the Universe” proved to be a hit, both critically and commercially.
A new project
“The next step was pretty obvious to me, being Catholic and being Polish,” Pelc said.
“Pope John Paul II was extremely popular in the world at the time; he was traveling much more than the old popes did previously. And he was actually coming to Japan.”
John Paul II was the first pontiff to visit the country. The pope arrived in Japan in February 1981, to a small but enthusiastic welcome.
The pope’s visit galvanized Pelc, who was still riding high on the success of the St. Francis comic. He began looking into the possibility of producing another religious-themed comic for Marvel.
A friend of Gene’s introduced him to Father Mieczyslaw Malinski, who was a friend of the pope’s back in Poland during the war. Fr. Malinski apparently consulted with the pope himself about what he thought about the idea of turning his story into a comic.
According to Pelc, John Paul II was supportive of the idea, as long as Fr. Malinski himself worked with the comic book team on the project.
So, the Marvel team was off to the races yet again. The first step? Research. And a lot of it.
Most of the information came from Fr. Malinski, but the story still had to be adapted to fit into the panels and speech bubbles.
That task fell to Steven Grant, a young freelance comic book artist who at the time was living in New York and working for Marvel. He had heard that Marvel was producing a second religious-themed comic, but he didn’t think much of it— he assumed that Mary Jo Duffy would be tasked with writing this one, too.
Instead, Marvel’s editor-in-chief called Grant into his office and asked him to take on the task of writing the John Paul II comic book.
“I got involved because I was expendable at the time,” Grant told CNA.
“I wasn’t one of the artists they particularly wanted writing the Fantastic Four that month,” he laughed.
“And they knew I was Catholic— that was my big credential.”
For Grant, working on a comic book about John Paul II— which the team always referred to as “the Pope Book”— was both ordinary, in the sense that the writing process was not markedly different than other comic books; and extraordinary, given that the subject matter was not only a living person, but also the leader of a 1-billion strong worldwide religion.
“No one was worried about offending him, but there was a lot of room to offend a lot of people if we did a bad job with it,” he said.
Bumps in the road
The project experienced two major roadblocks the year before it was released, the first of which was the attempt on John Paul’s life in May 1981, in the midst of the comic’s production.
Instead of dropping the project, the Marvel team wrote the events of the assassination into the book itself.
In addition, communicating with Fr. Malinski would prove more difficult than the team at Marvel had expected.
On Dec. 13, 1981, a general named Wojciech Jaruzelski appeared on television sets throughout Poland. In a video message repeated over and over again, the general declared martial law, and ordered troops to suppress the Solidarity movement, a trade union rooted in Catholic principles that opposed Communism.
Many striking Solidarity workers would die in the next few days, as Polish troops fired into groups of them.
After John Paul’s visit to his native Poland in 1979, it would be another decade before the Solidarity Party in Poland, with the pope’s encouragement, would finally gain a majority in Parliament, and, largely peacefully, the country would shrug off the shackles of Communism.
To make matters worse, the turmoil in Poland was taking place in the middle of the comic book’s production schedule, and the Marvel team needed Fr. Malinski’s insights in order to get the comic book written.
The Communists restricted much of the communications in and out of Poland during that time. Pelc said he remembers receiving smuggled communications from Fr. Malinski, which he brought to his father in New York to have translated from Polish to English.
Apart from Fr. Malinski’s contributions, Grant says he simply put his nose to the grindstone and read up on as much as he could about the pope’s life.
“It was a little pre-internet,” Grant chuckled.
“I figured anything I found three or four references to was probably accurate.”
His total research spanned about two months, he says, but the actual writing process was only a couple of weeks long, spurred on by Marvel’s tight production schedules.
Legacy
Finally, in 1982, the comic book hit the shelves. Thanks in large part to Catholic agencies buying up the edition, somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 million copies made their way into the world.
For a young comic book artist, it was quite the windfall. Grant said he was able to pay off his student loans when he received the royalties for the comic the following year.
So, did the pope himself ever get a chance to see himself as a Marvel hero? According to Pelc, he did. A Marvel executive flew to Rome and presented the pope with a leatherbound edition.
The success of the first two religious-themed comic books led to a third, this time about another future saint— and friend of John Paul’s— Mother Teresa of Calcutta.
Although Pelc was not able to assist with that project, that comic also proved successful, though it was the last of the major religious-themed comics that Marvel produced. That comic even won a Catholic Press Association award in 1984.
In the four decades since the John Paul II comic book’s release, several members of the team that worked on it, including the artist who created the drawings, have died.
Pelc and Grant have gone their separate ways. Grant is still a freelance comic writer, and does writing work for Marvel “once in a blue moon” when they call him up.
Though the “Pope book” remains just one of the hundreds of projects that Grant has worked on over the years, he said he remembers walking into his local laundromat in New York a few months after the comic’s release, and being surprised to see the comic’s cover framed and hung proudly on the wall.
Though Grant never told the owners of the laundromat— clearly devout Catholics— that he was the author of the comic, he said it brought him pride that they valued it so highly.
Pelc, who still lives in Tokyo, owns a company that sells merchandise for musical artists. He said he still gets asked to this day— mostly by parishioners at the Franciscan Chapel Center— about Marvel’s religious comics, he says.
On the side, Pelc still has a passion for telling compelling Catholic stories. He is currently working on a book about the late 16th-century 26 Christian martyrs of Japan, and hopes eventually to adapt the story into a screenplay.
For his part, Pelc says he thinks it unlikely that a company like Marvel would produce something like this again. But he’s glad that by means of the “Pope book,” he and Grant and the entire team were able to tell a good story, in a world inundated by bad stories.
“That man deserved to be known by more than just people who go to church. He was an everyman pope, and I, being Polish, loved him,” he reflected.
Note: This story was adapted from an episode of Catholic News Agency’s podcast, CNA Newsroom. Click here to listen to the full story.
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In any case most of the baptised, or those who took vows for the Kingdom rarely get even the Hope for everlasting life God offers to His beloveds in the Paradise, where each man and women enjoy invisible God’s (spousal) Love through opposite sex, who are effectively visible Body of God. Thus how among the n number of ways a sinner can remain in original sin is exposed by this monk and merely display that all humans ending up in eternal death are similarly living up by God’s Fatherly Mercy (not Love), which effectively also nurture potential saints through their life into adults suitable for paradise. May God uses this aspiring person’s efforts to exhibit a miracle there by this person might get a wee hint what God meant when He hints of everlasting bodily life for saints.
The confusion seems to enter into the article about confusion:
(quote) “by allowing a female monk”
There is no such thing as “a female monk”, there is either “a female nun” or more correctly “a nun” or “a male monk” or simply “monk”. Monks mean “man”, “nun” means woman. Hence, a woman cannot be a monk, she can only be a nun – in the Church at least.
Good show.
The fact that the Diocese of Lexington published a statement referring to this individual, a female, as “he” and “Brother” shows where the true confusion lies. The current pontiff’s public declarations of the demonic nature of gender ideology, if not merely a sop thrown to Backwardists, seem worth heeding.
“Risk”?
They succeeded.
I believe what this misguided woman is doing is morally wrong. As a Catholic publication you should know that a diocesan hermit is not a monk. We excuse secular news when they get this stuff wrong but for a Catholic news source one then wonders what else about this story is factual or sensationalized. In other words don’t make it worse than it is and further confuse and already confused Faithful!
It’s a valid question—can a transgender person become a consecrated hermit? Not a question we would have even asked 10 years ago.
He is NOT a monk or member of a specie religious Order while he did receive formation from a Benedictine Abbey. He was NOT a monk of that community! He is a hermit of the Diocese to which he resides and it is that Diocese that he was from that Diocese that received and professed as a hermit. “A hermit is recognized by law as one dedicated to God in consecrated life if he or she publicly professes in the hands of the diocesan bishop the three evangelical counsels, confirmed by vow or other sacred bond, and observes a proper program of living under his direction. Can. 604 §1.”
HE is a she.
“He” is not a he. “He” is a she. A female, XX chromosomes and all that.
First off, we all have to reference that Christian Matson is a self-professed hermit. A hermit is a person who has withdrawn from society and lives a solitary existence; a recluse. There is a big difference between the type of hermit Ms. Matson professes (work in the arts and to live a life of contemplation in a private hermitage), to that of Saint Benedict who professed his life to the Word of God and Prayer.
I am a Benedictine Oblate in Missouri and we just call this type of discussions as Hog-Wash. I am not ignorant to the spin about Dignitas Infinita and I understand the narrative being argued but this person has done nothing to change or alter her sexuality I find only a mental defect for which we should pray for this person.
No! Webster: A hermit is a person living in solitude as a religious discipline. The only concern would be what dicipline is being applied? Is she doomed for Hell? Can her gender transition be reversed, like a vasectomy? Does her family still love and support her/him? We know that current dogma rejects women from ordination, but a celibate trans Nun?
God raise up all exhiled hermits from the ashes of abnormality.
The Church should not put her imprimatur behind social psychosis.
The greater scandal is generated by Bishop Stowe, a successor of the Apostles, for allowing and promoting this diabolical disorientation.
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” (2 Cor 11:13)
You hit the bullseye, Maggie!
Thank you for the affirmation, DeaconEdwardPeitler. I’d love to hear one of your homilies. I’d be willing to bet you give the kind we sorely need to start hearing again in our parishes.
Maggie, there is one online that a parishioner of a parish I was once a member of put there with my permission. If you Google: “Every day is Newtown in America”, you should be able to access it. God bless.
Deacon Edward, I read your fine homily, and it is indeed the kind we should be hearing more often from our American pulpits! It tackles in a unique way the toughest moral issue of our culture today, which tragically we hear so little about.
(Indeed, we hear the least about the most important and toughest moral issues!)
I urge other readers to google and read “Every Day is Newtown in America” by Deacon Ed Peitler
In the Seattle area the only person in the car was ticketed for driving in the high-occupancy-vehicle lane. With him was his dog. The driver explained to the judge that “my dog identifies as a person.”
It is farce to propose this individual posing as a man “raises the danger of scandal”, it is scandalous. The issue is that the Church is put in the position of supporting the position that rejects God’s creation. She has lived her life denying herself. That which motivates this denial is deeply sad – sad for her and her confusion to live a lie while posing as a hermit.
Those that support her position are unworthy of any position of authority and are in a state of rebellion and apostasy. Either they repent or they should be removed.
Love your neighbor.
That Stowe does not recognize the serious mental disorder going on here is disturbing – as a pastoral care issue. He compounds the pastoral malpractice by affirming it as edifying. I can excuse the confused hermit, but the bishop’s behavior has done far more damage to the Church and society – and struggling gender dysphoric individuals – than the hermit ever could. Stowe is more interested in grand-standing and virtue signaling to the progressive wing than he is in the pastoral care of the hermit and others who are afflicted with this disorder. Shame on Stowe.
Spot on. But in regards to the individual claiming to be a hermit…one does not go looking for the limelight with public declarations while simultaneously declaring their vocation to solitude.
This issue can be resolved in a fairly concise manner:
1. Stop referring to a woman as “he.” She is not a monk.
2. Laicize her immediately and impose harsh discipline on the monastery leaders who supported this fraud.
So much could be said but lets keep it simple.
Bishop Stowe facilitated this conundrum. The lack of prudence exhibited by him in this situation and others is grounds for “reassignment.”
And the individual ostensibly desiring to grow in intimacy with the Lord in “solitude” as a “hermit” has a genius for turning the hermitage into center stage enjoying the limelight.
Clerical incompetency and malicious fraudulence have met.
When do we wake up?
They’re all frauds- the hermit and the hermit’s woke bishop. The hermit should shut up, return to the hermitage and take Stowe with him
The hermit is no hermit and apparently there is no hermitage. The individual need return to the closet and be still. They are in an act of public scandal and scaring the horses.
Can we agree, James, that the ersatz hermit should just shut up?
That Stowe would take this person in, is no suprise, and this person knew this when applying to Stowe to be a recognized hermit.
That neither Stowe or this person have a clue about the true hermit life is no suprise, either…both Stowe’s trumpeting of the existence of the hermit, and this person’s own self-publicity show this only a stunt for both…a hermit leads a hidden life.
My question is also one of finances, and if this person self-supporting, in which case, outside official diocean recognition, they could call themselves a Zen elephant, giraffe, or Catholic hermit to their heart’s content.
But if Stowe is using diocese funding to support his own pro-gay agenda via this person, both should be hung out to dry…
That the article focuses only on experts opining that an officially diocese recognized transexual hermit is a scandal, is like an article focusing on experts telling me that night is dark and here are the assorted grades of dark…..oh, really?
Bishop Stowe has long been a staunch advocate for homosexuality, transgenderism, and many things contrary to the Catholic faith. His churches fly gay pride flags, etc.
He also wades into politics, precisely in the manner you would expect. From America Magazine:
“In a strongly worded newspaper column, a Kentucky bishop urged Catholics to consider the church’s full teaching on life and to resist temptations to align themselves with the “Make America Great Again” movement started by President Trump.”
He was upset that during the March for Life, somebody wore a red MAGA baseball cap.
Bishop Stowe also publicly castigated the young man who the media tried to crucify for “smirking” in the face of a Native American drum beater. That kid later won a 200 million dollar lawsuit against CNN for defaming him. I wonder why the good bishop was not sued as well.
Other Stowe headlines “Bishop John Stowe: LGBTQ community an example of “unselfish love.” Stowe gives the headline address at meetings of James Martin’s “Outreach” organization.
You cannot expect such a bishop to uphold Catholic teaching in any way. After years of telling Catholics to do exactly what Pope Francis says, now he ignores Pope Franci’s latest document.
I have a feeling that this woman is quilty of having committed a grave sin of deception. It’s not clear if this current Bishop was the one who granted her permission to become a hermit or a predecessor, but clearly there was deception. It’s one thing if she was living as a self proclaimed hermit, but quite another if she is indeed a hermit living as a diocesan hermit under the supervision and direction of the bishop. In the former case she could well be a mentally ill person who is living in a delusional world. In the latter she would be a woman who has deliberately deceived a bishop over an extended period of time (it takes a matter of years to achieve this status) in order to become something she wasn’t. This is a sin which must be dealt with. Now that it is a public matter, a very clear public statement from the bishop is needed.
Bishop Stowe’s response is what should be expected of him. Pope Francis described the problem with such bishops a few days ago.
….”This wicked serpent, like an unclean torrent, pours into men of depraved minds and corrupt hearts the poison of his malice, the spirit of lying, impiety and blasphemy, and the deadly breath of impurity. These crafty enemies of mankind have filled to overflowing with gall and wormwood the Church, which is the Bride of the Lamb without spot; they have laid profane hands upon here most sacred treasures. Make haste, therefore, O invincible Prince, to help the people of God against the inroads of the lost spirits and grant us victory. Amen” From the Saint Michael the Archangel prayer. In Deliverance Prayers, Fr Chad Ripperger.
Fairly concise, Fraud? Webster: “Fraud is the wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain”. Laisize her? You could give “her” the maximum. She should be sent to jail. Forget her parents.
Will we ever understand one another? Walk in her/his shoes.
Your are already a pretty bad hermit if you seek some sort of public approval of your lifestyle. Be a child of God or not. This is a mockery.
I once wrote here about my “vision” of the reversed sock i.e. how currently the evil is labouring over the Church trying to “reverse” it so to speak, presenting the wrong side as right etc., something along the lines of Bosch’s paintings. Here I see that “reversed sock” again: the twist is trying to pose as a norm – once this new norm is accepted all the Church must be reversed accordingly.
The story with “a trans-hermit” made me recall another story of so-called “elder-virgin” Dosiphey which happened in 18c. Russia which is the direct opposite to what is being discussed.
Dosipheya, a daughter of very wealthy parents, was brought up in a convent by her grandmother who was a nun. When her grandmother became a hermit, the young woman was taken back home. She did not like being in the world and wanted to be a nun but her parents were adamantly against it, wanting her to marry. She ran away to Moscow with an intention to enter a convent but was recognized so she dressed in a male peasant dress. Because she was tall and somewhat masculine looking, she was accepted to the male monastery as a novice with the name Dosiphey” (a male form of her name). Unfortunately, in a while she was recognized again by some visitors of the monastery so she ran away to Kiev.
There she settled in a cave in a proximity of a male monastery. Everyone thought she was a male ascetic. With years she became known as one who can read hearts and discern the souls and people would stream to the hermit for advice. She spoke to people but never showed her face. Her fame was so big that even the Empress visited her and by her order “Dosiphey”was clothed as a monk (I presume the empress also thought Dosiphea was a man). She became an official hermit in the monastery. At some point Dosiphea was visited by her own sister who did not recognize her and gave her the advice not to look for those who hid themselves for the sake of God.
Her death was holy; she asked forgiveness from each of brethren in the monastery and was found dead the next day kneeling before icons. In her hand was found a note in which she stated that her body is prepared for the burial so it should be buried as it is. She died in her fifties.
She was venerated as the blessed (a monk) by the brethren and many others. When her sister visited the monastery again, she recognized her sister in the portrait of the blessed Dosiphey. This is how her story became known.
This story shed some light on the “reversed sock” of a trans-hermit. Dosiphea, a woman, chose to pose as a man because there was no other way to hide herself and to have safety living in a cave. She lived in a total obscurity, being dead to the world even more than the regular monks.
Seems like she began her career as a hermit by lying about her real sex. Not a good way to start the religious life. Then announces her status which causes further scandal. Shame on the Bishop for acting like all of this is OK.
Ah, these people, they claim to want natural and are hysterical about the way that humans have harmed this poor planet – but no problem disregarding or mutilating the way that God naturally made them.
All the other animals seem to figure this one out, quite naturally!
Bishop John Stowe.
Religion News Service.
No need to read further.
Peace my friends
I have read many comments that condemn this woman and the Bishop for not casting the first stone. John 8:1-11 What did Jesus say: Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” 11 “No, Lord,” she said. And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” Adultery v Posing as a male – Again, strong comments here.
Do you even know any folks that are transgender? I worked at the Outpatient Pharmacy of The Christ Hospital for years. We had a Doctor in the Medical Office Building that did gender reassignment procedures. Sorry, I did not know any female transitioning to male patients. I did know many male patients transitioning to female. There was not one of these patients that was doing this because it was a fad or popular, these were people trapped in a male body that did not have one male trait.
This should break your heart not bring out condemnation. Go on, throw the first stone you hypocrites. Maybe you should read Matthew 25:31-46 to find out what it takes to stay out of Hell.
I find your statement to be a good example of the ideology of the “nice party”, in the Church and in the world. Let us establish some clarity here. (And yes, I knew a transsexual, a biological woman who acquired a male body but it does not matter; why will be said later.)
You wrote: “I have read many comments that condemn this woman and the Bishop for not casting the first stone.”
What is “casting first stone”? – It is to punish for a sin. The woman in your example was about to be punished according to the Jewish law. Our Lord did not interfere until those whose aim was to catch Him on a violation of the law, addressed him. He then asked one who has never sinned to throw the first stone, beginning the execution which would lead to death.
Note that Jesus did not say “she did not sin, drop the stones”. Furthermore, he confirmed she sinned via saying “go and sin no more”. Did Jesus “cast the first stone” via saying that she was sinning = saying the truth? Obviously not. Then, analogically, the commentators here are also not casting a stone but are stating the truth, namely that the Church cannot accept untruth i.e. treating a biological woman as a man. The removal of “the female hermit monk” from the male religious organization and putting her into an appropriate one (female or unisex) would not be a punishment but a restoration of the truth.
You asked: “Do you even know any folks that are transgender?”
Your question is not really relevant because here we are discussing a basic (primitive even) objective truth, that a man cannot be a female and vice versa. The fact that some know transgender people and some do not cannot change this truth – it can only influence the degree of compassion for a human suffering – or may not, if the transgender people whom one knows are obnoxious, just it is the case with any kind of people.
The truth is that hormones and surgery cannot make a man into a woman and vice versa because an appearance does not make them such. A woman who had a double mastectomy b.o. of breast cancer does not become a man; a man who lost his penis due to an accident or developed breasts b.o. a hormonal imbalance or medical treatment does not become a woman. From here follows that the true mercy would be to state to the transgenders the truth i.e.:
“No surgery will ever make you a man (or a woman). You will get an artificial body which has to be supported and maintained via various damaging drugs. If now you are a woman who thinks that she is a man trapped in the female body, after the surgeries you will be a woman literally trapped in the fake of the male body – so you are exchanging a real sex/gender and a real body for a fake sex/gender and a fake body. Hence, what if we try first to do thorough psychotherapy and find out what in your psyche makes you feel this way.”
My study of human psychology (including psychoanalysis) enables me to recognize in many transgenders, who seek to change their bodies, the symptoms which are exhibited by people who suffer borderline personality disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, bulimia/anorexia depression and so on. Very often it is one unhappy boiling mix of pain and self-loathing which simply takes different (available) forms. More often than not this self-loathing stems from early trauma, abuse, toxic family environments and so on – children in such families feel they are not acceptable so they are ready to do anything to be accepted (including self-mutilation, psychological and physical).
My opinion is also informed by the sci-data which shows higher than average incidence of abuse/other troubles in the families of transgenders, and also of emotional incest. I was astonished when one of such people, a biological woman, confessed that although she mentioned anorexia/anxiety, depression etc. and those symptoms were never paid attention to during her interview which led her to mastectomy. “A psychologist” couldn’t care less. Surely, they would say “they wished good to the young woman” (who is now detransitioning). It is well-known now that those who “assess” such people simply usher them towards “a treatment”.
How could it be than that those who say they are so compassionate to the transgenders are in reality do not bother to propose the much less damaging option which will most likely allow them to avoid the surgery, first? – Most likely because they are deluded as a result of believing that a man can become a woman and a woman can become a man. In that, informed by the lie (or a delusion) system of values, those who try to prevent irreversible damage are “unkind” and so on. This is why you see those who hold on to the objective truth “man is man, woman is woman” as “stone-throwers”. Our refusal to accept the lie threatens your “nice” i.e. purely narcissistic, system.