Religious arguments against transsexualism?

They might chuck the clothing prohibition in your direction, try reminding them that clothing has changed in the thousands of years. Might also try to hang the what-will-the-neighbors/family-think on you, not sure what to respond with, my parents haven't acknowledged me yet, they're firmly set on ignore-and-harp with the situation, so I'm afraid I don't have much of a response for that besides "It's not up to me to make them happy". You might want to make a list and bring it with you so you don't forget what to say during an emotional time. Try and come up with a backup plan, too, should it go horribly, always good to have one.

There are some obscure Deuteronomy passages about women being forbidden from wearing men's clothing and vice versa. but to be honest they don't actually seem to be widely known. But it's worth pointing out that these passages were probably in reference to the practices of some of the Israelites neighbors, including ritual cross-dressing in religious worship, and the keeping of male sex slaves who were often castrated and might be forced to emulate women for their heterosexual master (female sex slaves being rare, and eunuchs having the advantage of not getting pregnant). Neither of these cases have anything at all to do with being trans now.

If you want to cover your bets, it might be worth it to look through Deuteronomy and Leviticus, and find other obscure and bizarre commandments to point out - esp. look up Levitical passages concerning the treatment of "leprosy." It involves slitting a bird's throat, draining the blood into a bowl of water, dipping a live bird with a hyssop twig tied to it with red thread in the bloody water, and sprinkling the person with it. Also, your house can get "leprosy" too and requires the same treatment. However I doubt your mom or anyone else has done this in response to basement mold in a very long time.

More commonly, people give very vague arguments that aren't particularly scripture-heavy. "God made you a man/woman and you don't have a choice/have to act like one," "you can't tell God he made a mistake," etc. These are frankly ridiculous. If there's a divine consciousness responsible for the conditions of one's birth, that being is responsible for situations far more unfathomable than just being trans.

The being responsible for progeria or conjoined twins, not to mention intersex people and all possible variations of basic human nature, is certainly capable of causing some people to have a psyche/soul/mind/etc in contradiction with their outer form. And we're talking ineffable divine plan here - one may assume the divine doesn't make "mistakes," however the divine may do things for reasons we can't understand. That's why it's called "ineffable."

But just because we don't understand why such conditions might be given, that doesn't mean one shouldn't *respond* to them. It's an imperfect comparison, but if someone is born without a leg, it isn't saying God made a "mistake" to give them a prosthesis, is it? Why would this be different? If God makes a person trans, why couldn't that be with the intention of making the person cope with transition and life as a trans person?

Scripture doesn't directly address the phenomenon. If your mom comes up with arguments like "God doesn't make mistakes" or something along that line, then ask her to explain why some children are born with the genitalia of both sexes. If a child can be born that way, why is it such a stretch to believe that a child can be born physically one sex and psychologically the other?

Well, there really aren't any; any more than there are religious arguments against diabetes, epilepsy, left-handedness, or being tall.

However, if someone is determined to try to manufacture one by misinterpreting scripture, you can find a lot of useful rebuttals here;

http://www.gendertree.com/

.I can relate to your pain because I am a transpecial ( pronounced transpee-see -al) I know deep in my soul that I was born to be a duck. But I can't get any therapist to take me seriously. I so want to have my body corrected so that I can have a bill and feathers and webbed feetMy preacher tells me that I should be who I was born as because God doesn't make mistakes, But I know he is wrong in my heart. . God made a mistake making me human, My inner duckiness calls to me. and I must be true to my inner self. Worse yet, the other ducks won't accept me as the duck I truly am inside. They fly away when they see me in my ungainly human body splashing around at the shallow end of the pond. I hope to get a website for Transpecial people like myself who know deep in their hearts that they were born into the wrong species. If enough of us get together we can force the APA to remove transpeciality from the DSM and truly claim our rights. Soon, with our numbers swelling , we will have a political force to be recognized and will organize transpecial pride parades in all the major cities of the world . The pony boys and girls will gallop in their shiny new leather saddles. the poodle boys and girls will crawl around on all fours sniffing each other's butts, and we duck people will have a float with a big pond on it to paddle around in as we declare our pride and demand that the rest of society accept us as " normal" and pay for whatever surgical procedures are necessary to correct our " birth defects" We'll allow zoophiles to join our transpecial organization because they love duck and ponies and doggies and all sorts of animals and will therefore support us. Then we'll get laws enacted to protect us from harassment . we'll make it a hatecrime to make any comments that aren't complimentary to transpecials and zoophiles. We may even get our own section on yahoo answers and delete any content that doesn't agree with our point of view. ( quack!!!!)

i agree with Bill, that's a great comeback.

God created you the way He wanted you to be. I suggest you stay that way.