Spirituality, Healing and the Whole Person: Reconciling Faith in the Transgender Community

Abstract Transgender issues have become a topic of common conversation due to recent events in government, the news and social media. This has caused much attention to be drawn to the people who identify with the transgender community. Some of the attention has been positive and empowering. Some of the attention has been negative and hurtful. Within religious circles, there are clergy and faith leaders who support the transgender community and there are those who ardently oppose it to the point of judgment and name-calling. This opposition of transgender identifying people by faith-based organizations (churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, etc.) can have a profound impact on the spirituality of their congregants – the people who identify as transgender, their friends and acquaintances. The message that is transmitted from these places of worship that disagree with the transgender identity is one of dismissal. Transgender people hear that they do not belong in faith circles because of the rules, dictated by an interpretation of Scripture, that say they “are confused” or are “an abomination” and “sinners.” This causes people to wonder about their belonging, their ability to remain faithful and their self-worth as spiritual beings. Children and teenagers are especially at risk when they hear these messages of disdain just as they begin to question their identity and their sense of self. This article seeks to address how children with gender dysphoria and those who identify as transgender might overcome the religious and faith-based stigma that has been put upon them. By seeking guidance from supportive and affirming spiritual care providers, these children and teenagers have a chance at preserving their faith and their sense of the sacred. The children, teens and families that are seen at the Genecis Clinic at Children’s Health – Medical Center Dallas are seen as a whole person. By using the Genecis Program at Children’s Health as an example of holistic care for children with gender dysphoria, this author will describe how practitioners can uphold and encourage the spirituality of transgender people, even when the religious culture tells them otherwise. This paper is based on the first hand encounters between children, teens, family members and the spiritual care providers at Children’s Health. This paper does not reflect a larger population than those in the Genecis Clinic but it does address how spiritual care can be integrated into the holistic healing and care of people with gender dysphoria and those who identify as transgender

Lightning Observations above and below clouds

The quantitative optical characteristics of cloud to ground (CG) and intracloud (IC) lightning above clouds were studied. A data base of a number of pulse paramaters such as energy, rise times, pulse widths and pulse intervals was complied and categorized for first return strokes, subsequent strokes, the intracloud part of CG flashes and IC flashes. It is found that: (1) single stroke CG's are more readily distinguishable from IC flashes than multiple stroke CG's; (2) there is no significant difference between the energy of first and subsequent return stroke pulses; and (3) the pulse rise times and pulse widths are time broadened. Lightning activity in a mesoscale convective weather system (MCS) was examined. The CG flash rates average almost 50 per minute for 7 hours. It is shown that lightning above storms embedded within the MCS IC lightning activity can be much greater than CG activity at certain times in the MCS lifecycle

Phase linear interferometer experiment maintenance and calibration manual

This manual describes the necessary procedures for assuring continuous lightning sferics data collection at Marshall Space Flight Center. The phase linear interferometer experiment is under evaluation as a candidate RF sensor to support the space based optical lightning mapper system

Mental Health of Children and Young People in England, 2017: Trends and characteristics

This survey series provides England’s best source of data on trends in child mental health. Emotional, behavioural, hyperactivity, and other types of mental disorder were assessed in 5 to 15 year olds in 1999, 5 to 16 year olds in 2004, and 5 to 19 year olds in 2017. One in eight (12.8%) 5 to 19 year olds had a mental disorder when assessed in 2017. Rates were similar in boys and girls. Data for 5 to 15 year olds show a slight upward trend over time in the prevalence of emotional disorders.Rates for behavioural, hyperactivity and other disorders have remained broadly stable

Modeling material failure with a vectorized routine

The computational aspects of modelling material failure in structural wood members are presented with particular reference to vector processing aspects. Wood members are considered to be highly orthotropic, inhomogeneous, and discontinuous due to the complex microstructure of wood material and the presence of natural growth characteristics such as knots, cracks and cross grain in wood members. The simulation of strength behavior of wood members is accomplished through the use of a special purpose finite element/fracture mechanics routine, program STARW (Strength Analysis Routine for Wood). Program STARW employs quadratic finite elements combined with singular crack tip elements in a finite element mesh. Vector processing techniques are employed in mesh generation, stiffness matrix formation, simultaneous equation solution, and material failure calculations. The paper addresses these techniques along with the time and effort requirements needed to convert existing finite element code to a vectorized version. Comparisons in execution time between vectorized and nonvectorized routines are provided

Correlations and fluctuations of a confined electron gas

The grand potential $\Omega$ and the response $R = - \partial \Omega /\partial x$ of a phase-coherent confined noninteracting electron gas depend sensitively on chemical potential $\mu$ or external parameter $x$. We compute their autocorrelation as a function of $\mu$, $x$ and temperature. The result is related to the short-time dynamics of the corresponding classical system, implying in general the absence of a universal regime. Chaotic, diffusive and integrable motions are investigated, and illustrated numerically. The autocorrelation of the persistent current of a disordered mesoscopic ring is also computed.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Connecting elders by facilitating mobility

A key aspect of staying connected is the ability to travel and visit friends and family, yet mobile situations often pose difficulties for the older population. In this paper, we discuss how technology can support older people on the move, describing work which we have done and are doing in this area and outlining some of the challenges that lie ahead. We focus on providing support for navigation, which is a key part of travel, and outline some of the results of our work, showing that electronic aids can effectively help older people with this activity

Digital filter suppresses effects of nonstatistical noise bursts on multichannel scaler digital averaging systems

Digital filter suppresses the effects of nonstatistical noise bursts on data averaged over multichannel scaler. Interposed between the sampled channels and the digital averaging system, it uses binary logic circuitry to compare the number of counts per channel with the average number of counts per channel

Estimating Column Density in Molecular Clouds with FIR and Sub-mm Emission Maps

We have used a numerical simulation of a turbulent cloud to synthesize maps of the thermal emission from dust at a variety of far-IR and sub-mm wavelengths. The average column density and external radiation field in the simulation is well matched to clouds such as Perseus and Ophiuchus. We use pairs of single-wavelength emission maps to derive the dust color temperature and column density, and we compare the derived column densities with the true column density. We demonstrate that longer wavelength emission maps yield less biased estimates of column density than maps made towards the peak of the dust emission spectrum. We compare the scatter in the derived column density with the observed scatter in Perseus and Ophiuchus. We find that while in Perseus all of the observed scatter in the emission-derived versus the extinction-derived column density can be attributed to the flawed assumption of isothermal dust along each line of sight, in Ophiuchus there is additional scatter above what can be explained by the isothermal assumption. Our results imply that variations in dust emission properties within a molecular cloud are not necessarily a major source of uncertainty in column density measurements.Comment: Accepted to ApJ Letter