I was raised Catholic. I no longer subscribe to that faith because I think they’re wrong about some things. Also they want me dead.
I don’t let that last part over-worry me. It’s not really a personal thing. They don’t want me dead like they’re taking out a contract with the Mob to have it done. They want me dead passively and for my own good, you see.
I’m not exaggerating.
As evidence I present this interesting explanation about the Church’s position on transsexual Catholics from Catholic blogger Mary Kochan (as cited from the Edge, as I really don’t want to link to Catholic Exchange. you can get the source links from the cited article if you really feel the need):
“The Church does not accept that you have ’become a woman’ regardless of your ability to pass as one, either by demeanor, dress, physique, or external anatomy,” Kochan continued. “If you ever were really a man, then you still are, regardless of what you have done to yourself. It is not my ’absolute views on your status as a male’–it is the Church that says it.”
Added Kochan, “I understand that you were in distress even to the point of your health being wrecked and I’m not in any way making light of that. But objectively speaking, what you proposed and carried out as a remedy to your distress was the breaking of God’s law that says that you may not mutilate your body.” Continued Kochan, “It is better to die than to offend God. It would have been better for you to have given your life to stay in obedience to God, than to break His law and to drag along into sin your poor spouse.” Kochan continued, “That is hard, but really everyone of us should feel that way about every serious sin we have committed. We should prefer the death of our bodies to the death of our souls, shouldn’t we?
All emphasis above mine. All Catholicism above… well let’s talk about that.
A few of you reading this blog will recall I went through a period in my life in which I tried to “cure” myself of my nasty transsexual temptations by devoting myself to a very strict Catholic life. If the Church was for it, I was for it. If they were against it, I was against it. You’ve heard of people “more Catholic than the pope”? That was me for a period of about five years.
A result of that devotion, along with my particular cross-gender temptations, was that I investigated in depth where the Church stood on issues like homosexuality and transsexuality. I’m confident that my understanding of the Church’s positions on these matters surpasses that of the average Catholic and generally surpasses that of typical clergy. I know the Church’s teachings on this stuff quite well, and therefore I feel qualified to say…
Mary Kochran is absolutely correct – at least as far as she’s explaining the implications of Catholic teaching. It may be divorced from reality, but her explanation is sympatico with the Church’s teachings on transsexuality. This might surprise some of you who have heard far more diplomatic statements coming from a Catholic priest here or there. Trust me… this stuff may be candy-coated or watered down by your local Father Feelgood, but underlying it all what Kochran says is where the Church stands. Death is preferable to transition for us.
Transsexuals are even less compatible with Catholic teaching than homosexuals. Homosexuals are simply told to practice chastity. Transsexuals are told we don’t actually exist at all. Once again, I’m not exaggerating.
Specifically, Catholic teaching does not acknowledge the possibility that someone could have an external body of one sex but a mind and gender identity of the other. They don’t say they’ve never considered it. They say it’s impossible.
And this is not an issue open to revision based upon new evidence. There are fundamental issues of ontology involved here. The Church says human beings are either male or female. Period. End of story. This is essential because that fundamental duality is considered a central truth explaining God, the Church, the nature of Christ, the Priesthood… even Love itself. If they acknowledge that transsexuals – people born with a physical body opposite of their gender identity – actually exist, it would shake the foundations of Church teaching a heck of a lot more than that business with Galileo ever did.
The only way Catholicism can explain the appearance of transsexuals in the real world is to consider them to be bizarrely depraved sinners with nonsensical motivations. That’s what Ms. Kochan is attempting to do in her windy multi-part treatise. Her leaden advice won’t help any actual transsexuals who may be looking to the Church for guidance. But it’s really the best she can do while accounting for what the Church actually teaches (besides, she seems to be speaking mostly to her non-trans audience rather than trying to help transsexuals with her advice).
Shorter version: “The Church says everyone is either a boy or a girl. You say you’re a girl even though you were born a boy. Therefore you’re either lying or you’re a very deluded person. Simply acknowledge your delusion and we’ll grudgingly accept you as a very sick and mutilated sinner. But if that sounds too hard for you, have you ever considered an early death? That option might make all of us breathe a little more easily.”
Anyway, like I said before, I was raised Catholic. I was also born transsexual.
I can choose whether or not to belong to the former. The latter is just a fact. So they’ve got it exactly backward.
Sadly, their view on transgender issues is merely one of many misguided, archaic and frankly mean-spirited ones still existing. I was baptized protestant and raised catholic at my step-mother’s insistence, and really became involved with the church during my first marriage… baptism committee, youth ministry, occasional usher… What changed all that? The ignorance called annulment and the church’s loophole for my children so that they would not be “illegitimate.”
Like you, I have explored a number of religions in an unconscious means of cleansing myself of my condition, and in searching for answers. I’ve come to the conclusion over the years that all organized religion is inherently evil, regardless of their stance. While religious belief can and does provide hope, frankly if religion did not exist, the world would be a safer place. But then again, I suppose people would find some other issue to fight over…
I second everything Keri said. I lost whatever faith I had when God refused to answer my nightly prayers as a child to turn me into a girl. Either he doesn’t exist or else he likes to play cruel practical jokes on some of us.
As far as the Catholic church goes, how can you take seriously any organization that used to consider being left-handed a sin and forced lefties to do everything right-handed. They’ve always been a few hundred years behind the rest of society.
BTW, I love your blog, Diana 🙂
The transsexual version of the Epicurean Dilemma:
If god is all good and omnipotent then whence evil?
Either god is malevolent and wills evil
Or god is not omnipotent and can’t prevent evil
Then why call him god?
When I was 13 or 14 my parents sent me to a priest for counseling after catching me dressing up for the third or forth time.
Besides making a pass at me the priest suggested that unless I lived a life of denial never even thinking the truth about myself I would burn in hell. He suggested entering the priesthood would help.
If I couldn’t or wouldn’t he suggested suicide as a path to both avoiding sinning and to spare my parents feelings.
I chose a different path… I admitted the likelihood of there being a god was on a par with Santa Claus and accepted atheism.
No gods, No masters.
Okay, so I do not disagree with the tenet that the hierarchy of any religion is self-serving and comprised of very fallible human beings that use trickery, deceit, and suspect truths to keep their flocks in line. However, religions are not evil of themselves, those who have their own axe to grind, be it individually or collectively, make them evil. Big lies exist within the framework of every religion, for instance, the Catholic Church has the doctrine of infallibility, which does not allow or admit that there is anything to argue even if the viewpoint is clearly wrong in the opinion of a significant number of one-time adherents. This is what causes schisms and new branches of religions. Infallibility is a great tool to hold back progress, and it is purely subjective, held by one human being, one seriously flawed human being, who brings his entire life experience to the table when setting out doctrine on faith and morals. This kind of thing is replicated everywhere a religion springs up, purely to control the masses. Sheesh, that is, more than anything else, the reason I do not buy into any organized religion anymore. I too was baptized and raised catholic, but managed to slip the brainwashing and indoctrination to find a morality that I can live by as an outsider, and I have always been and will always remain and outsider because of my views. Facts tend to obfuscate the truth, especially when they are not based in the quantifiable but in shoddy beliefs that produce constructs slapped together to support a viewpoint. Again, I do not feel that religion is evil as long as you keep it divorced from the interpretation of human beings with closed minds. However, that is like finding a virgin on the set of a porno shoot, and so we have individuals running religions that do great harm and social damage, although I am sure that none of them would ever admit to that. The greatest evils in the world have been bolstered as being done in the name of some god. Whatever happened to the ‘do unto others’ admonition? That seems to have been misinterpreted and subverted for misguided purposes. It seems to me that it is a call to live and let live and not force your stupidities on someone else just because you can. If a religion could first do no harm, psychological or physical, in the name of their god, I might give them a chance, unfortunately that is the impossible dream. Societies are structured to be exclusionary, and as religions are outgrowths of society, they too are exclusionary, even though they would be offended by that characterization.
Anyway, I survived Catholicism and I did not even get a lousy t-shirt for it! 😀
I am not sure why I am even commenting on this, I escaped worrying about what others think a long time ago. I would never belong to any group that was too inflexible to adapt to a new way of looking at or experiencing life. There is room in this world for any group that lives by the single rule of ‘first do no harm’! If we all stopped to think about the repercussions from our words and actions before speaking or doing, the world might finally reach the millennium, a thousand years of peace and joy for everyone. However much I might wish for that, my cynical nature has become too developed to accept the possibility, and that, for me, is the saddest thing that has resulted from by bout with religion while I was growing up and discovering who I was. I am going to shut up now, because I should never be allowed to rant like this in someone else’s blog. I have my mojo together, and I do not need to practice a religion anymore.
Well, the Church is wrong. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Some examples, off the top of my head:
1. Supported slavery
2. Refused to protect Jews during the Holocaust
3. The Crusades
4. The Grand Inquisition
5. Historical oppression of women
6. Refuses do anything about child molesters masquerading as priests, or even acknowledge that there is a serious problem
If the Bible is truly an infallible standard of morality, why does it contain so many stories of sex, rape, incest, bestiality, and human sacrifice?
And then there is this, which is a truly beautiful piece of writing:
http://www.humanistsofutah.org/2002/WhyCantIOwnACanadian_10-02.html
I wish to clarify my remark about all organized religion being evil…. what I meant to infer is that those organizations have corrupted their religion for their own political agenda and profit. The religious tenets themselves are not inherently evil, merely the custodians holding all the keys.
Amen.
I Agree with you Keri, you are right!
[…] Diana at Salad Bingo, and Halle at Maintaining the Façade both referenced the writings of a blogger at the Catholic Exchange portal website, where said individual was replying to a Catholic transsexual woman looking for guidance to find her place in the church, only to find a reiteration and statement on the Roman Catholic church’s position on transsexuals in the Catholic church. I’m not even going to dignify Catholic Exchange with a direct link to their article – Go and Google for it if you’re curious. […]
As a transgender Catholic, I feel the need to make a few corrections to your assessment of the Church’s teachings.
In spite of being transgender, I live fully within the rules of the Catholic Church. I have never transitioned or presented as female, and I am celibate.
For one thing, they never said it is impossible for someone to be a woman in a man’s body. All they have said on the matter is that transitioning does not change your sex, and that it is a sin because it is mutilation, which is blasphemy. If you were born male, you will always be male because God made you that way. There is no teaching that says that God did not make you and me with a male body and a female gender identity.
Because we live in a culture that assumes that no one is transgender, priests raised in this culture will operate under the same assumptions and say we’re deluded. This is not official teaching.
Also, a precedent exists in the teaching on same-sex attraction. That is considered to be a difficult cross to bear rather than a sinful choice. People with same-sex attraction are told to be celibate rather than marry women or engage in homosexual acts.
Implicit in this teaching is a directive for how we are to be seen. For us, transgender feelings are our cross to bear. In Catholic reviews of movies in which a woman and a man switch bodies (e.g. The Hot Chick), anything sexual on the part of those who have switched bodies is considered homosexual, whether it’s with a man or a woman (presumably because it violates “one man and one woman” in some way). Thus, we, too, are called to celibacy. Marriage is seen as a vocation, like the priesthood.
Catholics who hate someone for the crosses they bear are not real Catholics. I’m sorry if you’ve had to deal with those who have somehow missed the part about compassion.
Thanks for the thoughtful response Sarah.
As this is a fairly old post, I’m going to hold more detailed comments for the moment. I have an upcoming post on this topic planned. I’ll try to incorporate your input when I write it.
I meant to reply to your comment. My reply is written as a comment to Diana’s post.
Ok I screwed up twice. I meant to reply to your comment, and my comment is written as a reply to Diana’s post, and I also said that to Diana by mistake.
Sarah — the way you live is the way I attempted to live for my first five or six years as a Catholic, and for *almost* my entire life before that (with exception of a few incident that I thought of at the time as “slip-ups”).
But, when I was to the point that I couldn’t continue down that path any more – I entered a phase of a lot of prayer and study on the subject.
And I realized that if I know, deep in my heart, that I am a woman – and I dress like a man – then I really *am* cross-dressing. If I dress as a woman – other people I meet may *think* I’m cross-dressing — but which would I consider more of something to avoid? Other people thinking I’m cross-dressing, or, between God and myself, *knowing* that I really *am* cross-dressing? I chose to avoid the latter. It would be best to avoid both — both the appearance of the sin and the actual sin. But in this case I couldn’t.
So I decided to stop cross-dressing —- even though it meant that people who don’t understand what I go through would think that I am *starting* to cross-dress.
I don’t consider myself to be a woman trapped in a male body. Rather, I consider myself to be a woman with a body that came with some male parts. Obviously, the body couldn’t have been *entirely* male even to begin with. At very least, the brain had to be a female brain – or I wouldn’t have had these feelings. In my case, it seems quite likely (though not certain) that more of my body than just the brain was female from the start — after all, I’ve had endocrine anomilies my entire life.
I do NOT believe God made a mistake. There is a purpose, and a good one, in His plan, for me having been born with this condition. However, does this plan involve me refusing to seek proper medical treatment for said condition? I don’t see what evidence I have for that. Even SRS – the notion that this constitutes “mutilation” seems based on the premise that I am a man to begin with — a premise which my conscience, and my experiences in life, give me no choice whatsoever but to reject. Without that premise, it doesn’t constitute “mutilation” any more than removing the extra digit of someone born with six fingers per hand.
And as for the argument that it would be mutilation because of the reproductive capabilities of the un-treated parts —- for one thing, considering the endocrine anomilies I have endured my whole life, it is very possible that they never had any reproductive function to begin with (though that never was directly checked). But even if they had —- without at the very least HRT, I’d have been dead by now — no question. And I don’t think I have long to live without SRS.
So if they really *did* have reproductive function —- how does that make me any different than a cissexual woman with ovarian cancer?
I don’t see why a transsexual would be called to celibacy if the proposed partner had the opposite genitals. Is this forbidden by the official teachings of the Catholic Church?
It’s not officially forbidden, but homosexual relationships are. If a biological male believes that he is “really” a woman, and he is married, then he also believes that his relationship with his wife is “really” a lesbian relationship. If you believe that you are doing something you know to be a sin, then whether or not this is the case, then you are still sinning, because your intent is to sin.
For example, if you collect coins, and I steal a penny from you that I think is worth $100,000, but it’s really only worth one cent, then I have still committed a grave sin and must go to confession. Does this make sense?
I was raised an Catholic and continue to maintain a close relationship with our Lord. Before undergoing SRS, I consulted the Jesuit fathers from my school (yes, I went to a Catholic school) and was told: the body is just a shell, what is important is your heart and soul. If you truly believe that you will be a better and happier person after the surgery, then go ahead. If you believe that it will bring you closer to God, go ahead”… and I did. Now I have never been happier: I feel definitely more comfortable with my body and can concentrate more on the spirit (not to mention my career and social life which was inexistent before SRS. Like any Catholic woman, I go to Mass, say my daily prayers and yes, receive the Lord in communion. I married to a good Catholic man in a very private ceremony. Of course, I don’t go telling everyone I meet about my whole life. If anyone should find out, I just maintain a what-you-see-is-what-you-get attitude. From time to time when I look back and ask myself why I was born this way, my heart tells me that God allowed all these things to let me know that HE was there all the way, providing answers and solutions when I thought things were hopeless. God knows how much I prayed for a solution! Condemning SRS as something sinful is like telling a blind man not to undergo surgery to restore his sight all for the sake of suffering. Some will say that gender identity is not as important as sight. It is important! It’s the very first question we ask when a child is born, that’s how important it is…
[…] her blog, Salad Bingo, Diana posts her struggles about Transgenderism and […]
From roughly 2003 to 2010 I devoted myself to a renewed (as I saw it) and heartfelt devotion to faith in the Catholic church. It was a period of intense prayer, participation, fasting, charity, learning, and participation. Yet, slowly but surely it nearly destroyed every fiber of my being. That is until I was able to take a hard look myself and the Catholic worldview I had accepted. Even as I was raised as a Catholic, my returning devotion was completely unique and totally dedicated. It even progressed to the brink of entering the priesthood. But the crisis that brought me back to the church, incidentally, was based on the assumption that since the church was ordained by God and its teachings infallable it would certainly be the only real avenue to heal my lifelong, intense, and guilt ridden desire to be a female. Reading your post, it’s nice to hear I was at least not alone in that respect of my life, that is, fruitlessly using religion in attempts to cure being a transsexual. Not sure if it rings true with you either, but the desperation and conflict between religious dogma and my transsexualism are even clearly and literally marked by the knife scars on my body.
But reading that quote of the Catholic spokesperson made me sick inside. Not because I need her approval, I thankfully do not. It’s because of the blatant absence of humanity and thoughtlessness she displays by failing to see that true evil is excluding people from the love of God. It is not transgender people who go around telling others to kill themselves. Yet to her, we are the very essence of evil and sin, real wickedness that must be extinguished, exposable, insidious freaks of the natural world. Twisted logic of hate is all that is.
What an amazingly healing and affirming thing it is now to deal with my transition in a healthful way. By that I mean simply having one supportive, human being to talk to. This fact alone is sufficient evidence of the failure of the church to provide for its flock. In all my time in the church, through all my emotional turmoil, despite all my prayers I was never provided even one supportive or understanding ear that I could turn to. Not once did someone reach out where I could dare mention, or even hint at having a gender conflict. I did not need a miracle, I did not even need a cure, I just needed advice on how to keep getting up in the morning. I had to leave the church in order to find it. Hence, it is not surprising to read this type of venom. You are right to point out that transgender hatred is systemic in the consciousness and actions of Catholic (and other religious) leadership to the point of near criminality. Any conclusions about the nature of church and the sickening disregard for humanity (despite all its platitudes) which is exemplified by this individual and others like her are to me self evident. How many other lives does she seek to destroy? How many other transgender people would she love to see annihilated all for the sake of her purified version of humanity? Shame on you Mary Kochan. Shame on you, ma’am. Shame on you. Shame on you and that ugly flag you fly.
There is a lot of self deception and rationalisation going on amongst the pro-surgery transsexuals here as well as a very selective historicism.
[Diana’s response: Thanks for letting us know your opinion. It’s typically more constructive when you make an attempt to support your conclusion.]
Wow. Coming out as trans to my catholic parents just looks worse and worse the more I consider it.
I am a Catholic (though I am not and have never been a transsexual), and I’m sorry Mary Kochan said those mean things to you. It is true that transitioning is a grave sin, and that we should all prefer physical death to committing any grave sin (since death will lead us to Heaven if we die in good standing with God, but sufficiently serious sins lead us to Hell). However, suicide is an even worse sin. Anyone who tells you to commit such a sin is just as guilty as you would be if you did it, if not more so.
I don’t doubt that feeling that you should have been born the opposite sex is a huge cross to bear. Having to live in a social role that feels so alien must be so painful. The Church does teach that transsexuals are the sex they were born as, and are therefore misguided, but to call such people “bizarrely depraved sinners with nonsensical motivations” misses the point. We’re all sinners. All sin is bizarrely depraved and has nonsensical motivation. What kind of sense does it make to rebel against God, who loves us more than any human can and has our best interests in mind? We must be crazy if we do things on a regular basis that separate us from God and run the risk of separating us from Him eternally. I can’t quit losing my temper at certain people and saying hateful things to them. God loves them as much as He loves me, so to hurt them is to hurt Him. I must be out of my mind.
You could still come back to the Church. People who cannot receive Communion due to being in a state of mortal sin (such as remarriage without annulment) are still encouraged to go to Mass and make use of the Sacraments, such as confession and (if you get really sick) anointing of the sick. Remember, we’re all very sick and mutilated sinners. That’s why Jesus died for all of us. You might like this link: http://www.joshharris.com/the_room_my_dream.php
Again, I’m so sorry about what Mary Kochan said. Please consider coming back.
Hi Josh,
Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I appreciate your sincere invitation. Unfortunately I’m well beyond the point in which I might consider returning to the Church.
The Church’s recommended path for transsexuals is STRONGLY correlated in the past century of medical literature with suicide attempts. The most comprehensive survey on transgender health to date notes that 41% of trans people will attempt suicide at some point in their lives. The only intervention known to normalize this number with that of the general population is the path the church hierarchy forbids – transition. Speaking as someone who attempted to avoid transition by following the Church’s teaching only to end up on the brink of suicide, this is not a hypothetical situation to me. And the Church approved response of “try harder next time,” isn’t terribly convincing.
The main problem with Church understanding of the issue of transsexualism is that it is based upon an outdated understanding of human biology.
There have now been dozens of peer reviewed studies (beginning with a landmark study in 1995 and continuing through today) lending ever increasing legitimacy to the notion that transsexual brains are cross-sexed in utero via the mechanism of organization-activation. It has nothing to do with “feeling like you should have been born the opposite sex.” It’s all about trying to reconcile an already intersexed biology with appropriate gender expression.
Until the Church is ready to acknowledge that there is room in God’s design for human bodies which are not clearly gendered from birth via divine intent, there is little reason to listen to their opinions on the matter of transsexualism, and even less reason for a rational transsexual to deliver themselves into the Church’s care.
Thank you for your kind reply. Many people I invite back into the Church are nowhere near as nice about it as you have been.
Still, you seem to have a few mistaken assumptions, which I hope I can clear up. I’m not going to debate the morality of transitioning, since I’m one of those people who say, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it,” and you and I agree that the Church forbids it. However, it’s not about “try harder next time.” I lived a sinful life before I converted from atheism, and I was still addicted to many sins after my conversion. I could never have quit them under my own power. Only my relationship with God made that possible. Did you ever develop a close relationship with God? Like St. Paul said, “I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” If God can save me, He can save you.
You cite a scientific study to say that you’re a woman instead of a man. But science can’t define what a man or woman is, any more than science can tell us what a tree is, or what a planet is. We have to supply the definitions.
Even if science proves your position, what if science is wrong (science is often proven wrong by advances in science) and Catholicism is true? What if, when you die, you find out that you have already rejected God (and thus chosen Hell) by leaving the Church? You say science supports you. If science did not support you, would your opinion change to match what science said? I have a feeling it wouldn’t. I know I believe science if and only if it agrees with Church teaching and the Bible.
Even if your brain is somehow “more female” (however one defines that), I’m really having trouble seeing how that leads to a choice between transition and suicide.
I’m not saying all this to criticize, but to try to help you choose Heaven instead of Hell. You seem nice. I would rather you go to Heaven.
Josh,
The main problem I have with your advice is that you assume that transsexualism can be effectively treated by the same means as one uses to battle sin. This isn’t your fault. The Church insists that it can, and as you accept their authority on such matters why would you question it?
However a number of other transsexuals commenting in this thread including myself already tried this approach. It didn’t work. While I’m glad you found relief from your own life problems by following such a course, my own attempt nearly destroyed my life. It’s not just that it failed to make things all better, but that it actually made things quite a lot worse.
You suggest that perhaps I didn’t have a good enough relationship with God to make it work out better. I suggest in return that perhaps God didn’t answer my prayers because gender transition isn’t a sin in His eyes. If that’s so (and I firmly believe that it is) any church clamining to speak in his name will have a lot to more to answer for come judgement day than anything I’ll need to confront.
Also I’m afraid you misunderstood my point about scientific studies. The point isn’t to make a scientific statement about the ontology of gender. There is no single study which says “male bodied transsexuals are really women.” The studies (and there are dozens, not just one) confirm that there is a clear cross-sexed neurobiological component to the condition known as transsexualism. Based on where and how the biology is differentiated these studies discredit a number of previous theories about the nature of the condition and the potential for success of various treatments. The studies better explain why behavioral treatment paths fail to resolve the intense suffering and astonishingly high suicide rates for transsexuals, while a medical treatment path effectively resolves those problems.
In a separate post on the matter I analogized the Church’s position on this matter to a hypothetical instruction that it is immoral to treat polio with penicilin – only traditional methods like leeches would keep polio sufferers in compliance with God’s design. From my perspective as someone who has suffered from the untreated form of this condition, the Church’s teaching on the matter at hand seems just as arbitrary, misguided, and cruel as that hypothetical.
You say you have trouble recognizing how a differently gendered brain could lead to a choice between transition and suicide. To understand it you’ll need to stop assuming transsexuals are suffering from a purely psychological condition. The most plausible explanation for the acute mental distress experienced by non-transitioned transsexuals lies in biochemistry. This is consistent with the organization-activation theory which posits that structures within developing brains are organized by sex to prepare for their post-pubescent hormone levels. If, in adulthood, you switch those hormone levels to those of the opposite sex, you impair proper function of certain key neurological structures leading to intense emotional distress. Exactly the same pattern of symptoms (accute depression, anxiety, etc.) experienced by transsexuals prior to gender transition also emerges when high doses of estrogen are prescribed to men undergoing treatment for testicular cancer.
Because this is about chemistry it’s not treatable as a behavioral condition. You don’t stop the symptoms by finding a better relationship with God. You stop the symptoms when you fix the brain’s chemistry… in this case by normalizing the hormone levels to those of the opposite sex. However, in the case of transsexuals, this has the side-effect of developing all the secondary sexual characteristics of the opposite sex. Such people quickly lose the ability to function within society as their birth sex based upon their subsequent appearance alone. Fortunately such people have no desire to function in society as their birth sex. They readily adopt the gender role which aligns to their brain’s design. The peer reviewed literature published on the topic over the past 40 years overwhelmingly attests to the effectiveness of this path for treating the transsexual condition in stark contrast to every other treatment path ever attempted.
You wonder whether my opinion on this would ever change based on what science said. I’m sure some of it could. But what couldn’t change was my own experience in trying to live my life before gender transition and after. People who attempt to convince me my position on this should change based on teachings far removed from their own life experience are asking a form of the question “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” I’m going with my eyes for now, and through them my former teacher – the Church – looks ever less credible.
I thank you for your concern on my behalf. I readily recognize that within your belief system you’re attempting to help me. I’m just afraid that you’re not offering me anything I have never heard, considered, and to a large extent already attempted. I do not believe conforming to Church teaching on this matter would benefit my immortal soul. But I firmly believe it would endanger my mortal life.
For some reason, my browser won’t let me reply to your latest comment, so I have to reply here.
If it’s about chemistry, then simply taking the hormones should solve the problem. This in itself would not be sinful, any more than estrogen for testicular cancer is. The surgery and the living in the female social role are something else entirely. After all, from the fact that you referred to yourself as a “male-bodied transsexual”, I am led to conclude that even you recognize your body as male. Plus, those men who have to take estrogen aren’t forced to live as women as you describe for people in your situation.
But none of that matters, because you believe it is not a sin, and I disagree. You’ll have to forgive me for being blunt, but it seems that you start with your transition and build your worldview around that, just as I start with Catholicism and build my worldview around it. For this reason, I am inclined to agree with the person in that post you mention who said transitioning is your religion. You expect people to have faith in your claim that you are “really” a woman, in spite of the fact that you are male by any measurable test, just as we Catholics have faith in the Church’s claim that the Eucharist is really the body and blood of Christ in spite of being bread and wine by any measurable test.
You believe God allows transition. I don’t. (You are correct in that if the Church does not speak for God, then its claim to do so is an enormous blasphemy.) We are at an impasse. We have very different ideas about the creator of the universe. So, how will the matter be settled? We can’t both be right. When we die, we will find out which one of us is right. I’m betting my eternity on the One who rose from the dead and the Church He set up.
This is a good question to think about in general. If two people disagree about morality, who settles it?
Josh,
It’s sad that all my conversations with Catholic evangelists such as yourself end up in the same place. Eventually you just stop listening and lecture past the salient points of dissention.
Why are you avoiding my point that I tried – hard – to follow the Church’s teaching on this matter instead of transitioning, and it left me suicidal? Logically it can only be because you either don’t believe me or you think I somehow did the Catholicism wrong. But, as to the Catholic part, you’re not suggesting anything I didn’t previously try.
And as to the transition information you’re a bit out of your depth. I don’t mean that as an insult. It’s just that your terminology, questions, and contentions suggest someone not terribly familiar with the topic. If you’d like to educate yourself the GIRES review is a pretty thorough overview, especially if you have the gumption to follow the footnotes. I’ll leave that up to you.
I’m disturbed by your attempt to describe gender transition as a rival religion to Catholicism. It’s pretty clear in to me that the analogy is far closer to “chemotherapy for cancer patients” than choosing the way of the Reformation. The only reason transition rivals Catholicism at all is because the Church forces people to choose between itself and the only effective treatment known for the condition. If they never did (we disagree about the arbitrary nature of that decision), I’d likely still be Catholic today. Once again, are you really listening?
You ask “how can the matter be settled?” I say it can be easily settled by simply allowing one another the freedom to test our beliefs by the example of our own lives.
I fully believe that you can live as a happy, healthy person according to your Catholic faith. You don’t strike me as a villainous modern equivalent of a heretic burning inquisitor. The main flaw I see in your worldview is your assumption that the thing that works so well for you MUST work just as well for me.
And, while I know this is bedrock Catholic faith stuff, I’m asking the lenience to try another way. I’m not asking you to believe it will work. I’ll even let you say “I told you so” should you spy me burning in hell from your heavenly perch some day.
I remember the days when I stood at a curb pondering stepping in front of a passing bus. And I only chose not to because I didn’t feel like taking one whole extra step. That was the life I remember resulting from following the Church’s teaching for my life. The days grew ever more joyless until nothing at all mattered. Every emotion was the same grey, dull, sameness. In the end I didn’t care about anything. Not my life. Not my well being. And sure as heck not my immortal soul. When I was living like that the Church offered me nothing but “try harder.” When I chose a path that kept me out of the path of that speeding bus, that’s when the Church’s interest suddenly picked up. Sinner!!! It proclaimed. What you ought to do is… follow exactly the same path that made the speeding bus so compelling. Try harder. The bus itself made a stronger case.
It seems that I’m more comfortable than you with the notion that two people can disagree upon matters of morality. Particularly since, in this case, the morals at hand don’t alter your life at all but have potentially fatal consequences for mine. I don’t need you to abandon Catholicism to resolve this dispute. I merely need you to allow that you might not know the answer in this matter. Your need appears greater. I sincerely wonder why.
I’m “avoiding” your point because it’s irrelevant when you compare it against an eternity in Heaven or Hell. Two people can disagree, but only one of those two can agree with God. It’s not that Catholicism “works” for me and not for you, but that Catholicism is true, and if you keep on rejecting the real God in favor of an imaginary god that allows you to live however you choose without consequences, then you won’t enjoy spending eternity with the real God in Heaven, and all you’ll be left with is Hell. (In fact, some think Heaven and Hell are the same place, and God’s light feels like fire to those who rejected Him.)
Even if I live to be 120 like that Japanese guy, I would still prefer to suffer for the next 92 years and then spend eternity in Heaven than be happy for the next 92 years and then spend eternity in Hell. The reason I believe that transitioning leads to Hell is because the people who taught us about Hell are in a much better position to know who goes there than we are.
But because you accept the possibility of going to Hell and are OK with me gloating in Heaven (actually, once I’m done with purgatory, I won’t have such sinful desires), I’m not sure there’s anything I can say or do that will persuade you to choose Heaven. All I can do is hope my prayers for you have some effect.
Josh,
Well I guess we’ve come to the end of this dialogue. I don’t believe God condemns me for being transsexual or for transitioning. I don’t accept the authority of the Church any longer on this matter or any other. I don’t believe any of your advice on this matter would improve my prospects for this life or the next. But I firmly believe following it would bring misery far beyond your comprehension without any reward whatsoever.
All that being said, I appreciate the prayers. I believe your heart is good. And I appreciate your concern for me. I wish you well.
Hey Diana; this is a two-year-old post but, seeing as there are comments from 2012, I’m going to drop this here in the event it interests you.
You’re correct in that the hierarchy (and, if we wanted to be 100% accurate, the papacy**) believes everything you’ve said. The Church (hierarchy and laity together) is a little more mixed (though, much like the world today, with many siding with the papacy’s understanding of Transsexualism).
**When I once questioned the priest at my campus responsible for all us Catholics there as chaplain, he noted that – at one point – the church had spoke against any sort of surgery under the understanding that it constituted self-mutilation. Naturally, that changed.
Regardless, this is not (to the best of my knowledge) infallible doctrine (yet, though, given that I truly think – as you do – that it’d be absurd for a loving God to make Transsexuals sinful by nature, the Holy Spirit will keep the Church from ever declaring such a thing infallibly).
I used to be under the same rut as you, thinking that it’d be impossible for the hierarchy to change it’s mind because it would undermine its system of understanding regarding male and female, though there’s reason to think otherwise (it’s actually the homosexuals for whom this would be a feat, I think; despite the papacy’s current bumbling, strict MTF and FTM transitioning would keep in place the strict notion of different duties for the sexes; while getting the hierarchy to understand this is a feat of its own, homosexuals and bisexuals still disrupt this understanding of sex that the papacy currently has; Transsexuals shouldn’t).
Most of this hangs on whether the papacy allows ordination of women (given that Pope John Paul II went as far as an Apostolic Letter to say that he felt there was precedence against female clergy but still shy of infallibly declaring the impossibility of such means to me, if I’m allowed to appeal to Catholic reasoning here (appealing to anything but secular reasoning in public has always felt inappropriate to me), that the papacy is being held back from declaring something infallible that isn’t).
The most persuasive argument I’ve seen, in the language of the Church, is here: http://liberalcatholic.blogspot.com/ (check out the sections Is Ordinatio Sacerdotalis Infallible?, A Petition to the Holy Father for Women Priests, Women Priests: More Important Than Married Priests, and Genesis and Paul on Women).
In any case, if you find religious philosophy interesting (I do, particularly Catholicism’s strict logical structure that church teaching tends to have from inheriting the Roman Empire, part of what drew, and keeps, me to Catholicism), definitely check those out. They’re rather fascinating and bring alive the true diversity within Catholicism (that ought to be celebrated, instead of squashed out as it has in recent years). Though I certainly understand if you have no interest in returning to the Church. Always being more comfortable with acknowledging that there’s likely no religion that’s gotten it entirely right out there (though coming to understand more fully what the church has declared infallible and what is just the current teaching of the recent century and subject to change has helped alter that somewhat), I’ve been comfortable with knowing I might not agree entirely with whatever denomination I’m in; in spite of that, it still might be too painful a place for you. And I understand that entirely. You seem very kind (and patient, which is a trait I’ve always admired); I have no doubt you shall be welcomed into Heaven.
Regardless, while I hate proselytizing (so would loath to think of myself as a Catholic evangelist), my hope for any return you may make is largely selfish. I have this nagging gut feeling (which I have yet to concretely prove, unfortunately) that there is this strong liberal tradition amongst Catholics, being thoroughly (indeed, drawing its very liberalism from) Catholic(ism). On top of growing a strong liberal wing in which I could happily feel more comfortable in than the more conservative (and even moderate) elements that currently dominate the laity, such a force could help push real change in the current winds of opinion amongst the hierarchy.
In any case, I’m thoroughly glad you’ve been able to come to terms with the fact that you are Transsexual. May life only get better in the future.
Were there any drugs Diana that you could take which would have ended the suicidal thoughts without altering your hormones or gender?
I think this conversation has opened me up to the pain transsexuals go through, but it hasn’t changed my belief that transitioning is not the solution. For instance, a man can have his genitals taken off, but his arms are still those of a man. His feet are his feet. Every physical part of him expresses his original gender, not just the genitals. So how can cutting off one part create such a relief and happiness in the person who’s had the surgery?
It’s all a mystery to me.
Hi Lana,
The thing most people miss when it comes to the transsexual experience is that every one of their visceral treatment preferences (e.g. “Make them see a shrink,” “Give them antidepressants”) has a lengthy case history. It’s no longer a matter of “what if we try treatment X?” It’s now more about what to do in light of our evidence.
Anti-depressents don’t cure gender dysphoria. I was personally on them for a while and they didn’t make a dent, but that’s just anecdotal. There is not a single case in peer-reviewed literature showing effectiveness in treating transsexualism via antidepressant medication. And there are quite a lot of such attempts on record.
Your contention that I have “male arms” despite transition strikes me as a little absurd, but amusing. In a similar vein I give you a song inspired by a similar sentiment.
Thank you for the lovely song. It’s cute.
To me, a man who has transitioned looks like a man who has transitioned. But let’s put looks aside for a moment. I want to discuss how you feel inside. I’m wondering if your thoughts before transition were obsessive. See, I’m a woman who occasionally is mistaken for a man due to my height and short hair. (This usually happens at the entrance to the woman’s washroom.) No big deal. I know what I am. Why couldn’t you feel the same thing? Nowadays, there is such a broad definition of what a man or a woman is. Couldn’t you just accept that you were an effeminate man? Or couldn’t a woman who feels manly inside just accept that she’s just closer to the masculine side of the female spectrum?
As a woman, I don’t think during the day, oh I’m doing this or that because I’m a woman. I just “do”. Isn’t it strange to focus on gender? One thing I notice about transsexuals is they seem to pick the extreme feminine side to mirror. For instance, I don’t wear makeup or nylons or skirts or jewelery much, or pointy shoes or perfume. Yet, it seems to me, I feel totally feminine all the same. Why would a transsexual limit his expression of femininity to these types of caricatures? What aspect of femininity do you feel is imperative to your happiness?
I would like to share some hope. I am a 22 year old Catholic and transsexual. I struggled finding acceptance from the Church, but most of all accepting myself. I can honestly say that many Priests support us. You just need to go to Confession with Priests who accept you, find a spiritual home. At this point I’m trying to accept myself. When you approach Holy Communion ask yourself if Jesus wants to come to you. Also remember Gender Identity Disorder is a medical condition, and Priests are not doctors! Would you let a priest with no medical knowledge prescribe you antibiotics??? You have to be true to yourself, and to God. The first Saint of Australia was.excommunicated for thinking ahead of her time. Maybe our condition is ahead of our Church’s time. God bless!
It’s been a long time since anyone has left a message here, but I hope nobody minds if I contribute one. I’m Catholic and trans, but because I am also technically intersex – born looking like a girl but with mosaic sex chromosomes, xx and xy. I always felt like a boy, and have had the medical treatment to enable me to become a man. I am, and always have been, celibate as I recognise being trans and intersex as a vocation to celibacy.The majority of my chromosomes are female. I’m also bald and unambiguously male. If I were to turn up at Mass wearing female clothes I would no doubt cause something of a problem. As it is, nobody knows anything of my medical history – for that’s all it is – a medical history. I identity rather with the Ethiopian eunuch whom Philip baptised, and aspire to live as a ‘eunuch for the kingdom of heaven’, (Matt. 19: 12) with the grace of God and through the guidance and sacramental life of the church.
But here’s the thing: research increasingly indicates that at least some cases of transsexual gender identity may be due to an anomaly of the hypothalamic nucleus which regulates sexuality. The problem is physiological, not psychological in their cases too,
I am a female who went to catholic school and although not a devout catholic all my life I returned to the church in 2001 after my mom died. I have been at church every Sunday since. I wasn’t genetically born female but through the grace of God I was able to correct the “defect”. I have been physically a female since 1975 and I can attest that God has helped my life through many trials and tribulations. I can never understand ho people say that God condemns people who go through this turmoil. He has been nothing but generous to me. How can this be? This is supposed to be a sin of the highest order. God continues to bless my life. I really do not care what human beings on earth have to say. BTW the church has been in a lot of headlines and not all were flattering.