Throw away from obvious reasons.

TL;DR: I 'identify' as transgender and despite a few minor points a sensible person would call pedantic, I agree with what this man has said about Gender Identity Disorder being something I need to discuss and work on through therapy rather than 'solve' with surgery.

(unlike homosexuality which I believe to be inherently different and requiring no therapy or second thoughts and 'normal', for what that word is worth)

Qualifications, if needed. I am a male of almost thirty who has had sex and relationships with both sexes. I have long considered my (mental) feminine traits to outweigh my male in both multitude and magnitude. That is to say they are more numerous and more important to who I am. However, they are not all I am, they do not define me, and they are not entirely what others would use to describe me. I have gone to see many therapists over the years, and like anyone in my situation have long debated living as the other half full time and even getting sexual reassignment surgery.

I agree: surgery is very serious, permanent, and not something that should be flippantly decided in your adolescence. I do not believe surgery would solve all my underline issues. I believe feminine and masculine to be organizational constructs created for convenience, which while is totally cool and probably for the best, has everyone confused about who they are.

Surgery is serious. I am not going to make this point, we all know even routine things have inherent dangers. Anything permanent should be given considerable thought, more than can be done under the sheen of youth. I personally took two years of having a tattoo idea written down and drawn up prior to getting it, I know because I dated it. Even if there was a magic surgery to give me the body I've always wanted with fully functional sexual organs, I'd wait at least a year. I'd get other things in my life in order, I'd consider all factors. I would prioritize my finances so I didn't end up broke and relying on others to take care of me. My friends can testify, I once took six hours to make a character in Soul Caliber III. If it was my body, I wouldn't just consult the best doctors, I'd ask everyone. I'd ask about both sides of the gender fence, what they liked, wanted, and most importantly what they hated. My father used to say, the divorced knew more about marriage. Ask the unsatisfied. Do you reasonably think any teenager or child knows exactly what they want? I know we tend to romanticize the idea that words of children are honest and heart spoken and thus inherently correct and full of goodness, but any parent will tell you kids are wise for every hundred times they fall off the couch while hanging upside down, or don't realize that eating all ice cream dinners will make them sick. Young people have the beauty of following their heart, but that is because considering consequences is what makes one an adult. Balancing risk and reward makes someone wise. Thus why surgery is the answer for people like me, because we want to be the way we want to be seen so badly. We see the rewards as well worth any penalty, but as I have seen it is always not so, and not thinking twice or considering things more deeply isn't courage, it is fool-hardy.

This brings me to the Father's next point: Will this change make you happy? I don't know. I am well aware my gender issues aren't my only issue. I am also aware if I could slay even one of the two other large sources of stress in my life, I would need more therapy and have to reset the clock on every thing else in my life in order to take the time to recalibrate my consciousness. Why? I've lived with four major difficulties in my life. I know when I conquered the first, it fundamentally changed my thinking, as well as how I looked at my remaining problems. If another problem were to be solved through time, effort and therapy, wouldn't it be prudent to first see how I feel about myself as I relate to the world in terms of sex and gender? Maybe conquering another difficulty might convince me that living as the opposite gender full time is right for me, or maybe it might convince me to have surgery or the like, or maybe I'd just let it go. I've let things just as burdening go before.

My last point, which, I see as being the most controversial; how do we know how the other half really feels? He is right, face it. We don't. Other men don't know how other men feel, same for women. The human experience is like a solar storm, we can predict patterns and they have similar details to one another that make them easy to discuss and identify, but the truth is that calculating exactly what one will act like or look like is impossible. Thus the problem with gender (Feminine Vs. Masculine). These are just categories. Not determinants. You can like men and still be a sports super fan. You can like show tunes and like women. And the opposite, you can be gay and not feel the need to identify as the other sex. However, I think it is high time we stop attaching gender to ridiculous things like footballs and barbies. Nah, even more so. Stop making dresses and suits or what the fuck ever reserved for some kind of genital configuration. Stop making, and this is the key here, just because they have ten points in the female column and and only two in the male, that they should be more seriously thinking about if their genitals are lying assholes. You might like gym culture and feeling hunky, you may like women or even feeling dominant, you may like Call of Duty, you may want people to sometimes see you as a man, but that doesn't necessarily mean you want to be one from now on, day and night. You need to think long and hard if all of that absolutely means for you, not for anyone else, that you know you want to be a man. Fill in your own examples for womanhood here.

Tl;dr: I'm trans, I speak only for myself, and I think this man has something to say people in my position should consider if you can manage to set aside your ego and let yourself be open to a different world view. Seriously, don't let the chance for real introspection die under the guise of, 'he is kinder than other straight white religious men, but he is still wrong about people like me'.

I don't have it in me to reread this right now, so sorry for any rambling. First time I've ever typed something like this, hope it helped.