From someone whose experiences have left them with a distinct bias against the Catholic Church:

But what sealed it was when my parents sent me to a priest for counseling regarding my obvious case of transsexualism and the creepy

old pervert told me that not only would I be an abomination condemned to hell if I acted upon what I was but that even thinking about it was the same as doing.

He told me I should live a life devoid of love and sex to avoid this and become a priest devoting my life to god praying away the temptation.

The slimy old freak was patting me on the knee the while time he was telling me this and then gave me a little hug telling me that the priesthood offered a place where people with problems could find salvation.

I told him I was suicidal and he counseled that suicide would spare others the pain of my growing up transsexual only he used the word queer.

Maybe all of these separate accounts are lies, or at least exaggerations. But they used to say the same about those kids who claimed the local priest had molested them.

Priests and Ministers are human. And there's at least as much homophobia, transphobia and xenophobia amongst them as there is in the general population. The trouble is, I'm sure many of them mean well: they genuinely believe that for some people, suicide is the best way of not only sparing the victim themselves much pain, but removing what the Pope recently called a "threat to all humanity" - anyone whose existence caused confusion about the natural and God-ordained division into male and female.

I'm sure that wasn't what the Pope meant, but you can see how some already pre-disposed to transphobia might misinterpret it.

Lest this be seen as more of the usual Catholic Bashing... I've heard about even more of this kind of "advice" from Ministers as opposed to Priests. And one Hindu doctor reacted to a friend of mine by screaming "The Curse of Kali" and telling her in no uncertain terms to open her veins on the Ganges, and hope for better luck in her next incarnation. As for Imams, the less said the better. A matter of Family Honour, you see.

While no minister or priest has told me I should kill myself, one avowed national socialist atheist has done exactly that. Even offered to do it for me if I was too scared to.

I declined his invitation with a simple "after you".

I've not heard of a Rabbi doing it, but it would astound me if some didn't do it too.

Bigotry of this kind is eucumenical.

Ever wondered why most really pretty girls tend to be shorter and chubbier than their slim limbed sisters, who often have bigger noses and eyes that are slightly closer together? Ever noticed that many gay man have weirdly pretty faces? What you are seeing are different levels of hormonal influence. And, those varied levels are what intersex is really about. How about disparate sex drives in women? Clearly about higher and lower inherent testosterone levels. (You know ovaries manufacture a tiny bit of testosterone, don't you?)

Now within this "intersex" spectrum, reproduction is STILL the ultimate objective. Once an offspring is sterile due to genetic or drug induced flaws, while they may have vestiges of both genitalia, they are, in fact, "sexnull." Their brain will ultimately sex one way or the other, apparently. But, in terms of reproduction, they are, defacto, out of the game.

As someone who clearly looks female, has female genitalia, etc., but was born sterile and has no sex drive of any kind, I can tell you that not being hobbled by the reproductive imperative is one of the most liberating things that can happen to an individual. So, as a self proclaimed, "sexnull", I'd like to encourage people to discover new and unique ways to express themselves as individuals, as "normal" sexual identity is just one more constraint on human experience.

Now you had to go and be sensible, didn't you? And perhaps your good sense comes from experience, unlike many posters, who fire from their anuses.

had only one testicle, or so we're told, but he had millions of Germans and Austrians (don't forget the Austrians) regarding him as a father figure. The tacky ceremony in L.A. yesterday is proof positive that sexual ambiguity is no barrier to hysterical adulation.

It's hard to beat the Chinese all the same when it comes to manipulating sexual identity. During the Cultural Revolution a Chinese secret service agent Kang Sheng who'd learned of a relationship between a French-speaking Chinese interpreter, Shi Pei Pu, and Bernand Boursicot, archivist at French Embassy, pulled a brilliant stroke. The gullible Frenchman was persuaded that Shi Pei Pu was a woman forced to assume a male identity since childhood in order to avoid disgracing his parents who had produced only female children. To put icing on the cake, Shi Pei Pu eventually claimed to have given birth to Boursicot's son, Shi Du Du (later called Bertrand after his "father"). When both Shi Pei Pu and Boursicot were "exposed", for want of a better word, the truth emerged: the child had been bought from a doctor in Xinjiang province who had previously bought the child from his Uighur mother, who was in desperate financial straits at the time. Shi Pei Pu died on June 30 2009.

You can think about that now as I'm wondering why men have nipples, as a previous writer has stated. Yes, and some of them have man-boobs as you can see if you go to the beach. It must be because women like to play with them. Dr. Callahan (who's bot from Xingiang province in Central Asia it's fair to assume) will undoubtedly give a riveting scientific explanation on that.

was reckoned to be but he was passionate about music and sailing. The urge to reproduce is not primary in life, although for some people it's important, particularly in tribal societies where people don't have welfare and have to depend on their children to support them in old age. It's also important in monarchical societies where the idea of "dynasty" is a motivating factor.

Shellfish, especially oysters, are believed to have aphrodisiac powers but they can also be a source of lethal toxins.