I was surprised to learn, that in the ultra-conservative climate of Iran, changing your gender (re: the transgendered) is supported by the state! I don’t need a cite. It is all over the news.
That got me to thinking. What exactly is the Roman Catholic view of gender identity disorder and the transgendered?
First a little background. I was raised RC. And I was surprised to learn (in RC high school at least), that the Church is actually very open-minded on some issues (relatively speaking, of course). For example, you can be homosexual, though you can’t be gay. Also, theoretically, an atheist could get to heaven (look it up: justification by merit [RC] v. justification by faith [Protestants]). It doesn’t happen very often, they say. But under certain circumstances, it could happen. That’s almost Unitarian (no pun intended).
I have grown up to reject many of these teachings (sorry, I’m not a heathen–it’s just what I have grown to believe in my heart). But to-date, I have yet to learn: What is their view on transgender?
You won’t find a definite answer. It’s still a relatively new thing to popular knowledge, especially if due to practical concerns. Generally speaking Christian religions do not recognize a change occurring, whether through actual proclamations or due to lack of any. See this Wiki section. Whether a MTF who is lesbian is considered “okay” because their birth sex is opposite of their preference is another question, but I don’t know if it’s come up.
Iran’s attitudes aren’t specifically enlightened, however. It seems to be preferred to homosexuality.
Yes. Catholicism however doesn’t generally recognize “conversion/reparative therapy” like Evangelical Protestantism does, thus there is not the emphasis that they should force a heterosexual orientation.
Yep.
Also I think the various flavours of “intersex” would cause similar problems for the church, but they are rare enough to either pretend they don’t exist or just not consider in any great detail.
Yes this matches my experience going to church as a child. There was a tacit acceptance that some people were born oriented towards people of their own gender. But it was nevertheless a sin to have urges* and absolutely a sin to act on them.
Just as it’s a sin for a straight guy to have urges about boning
I knew that, but I found it oddly phrased in the OP. For me, “homosexual” and “gay” are synonyms, and not the difference between disposition and sexual practice.
The history of this question is interesting. Catholics in the 1950s had a completely accepting attitude toward transsexualism. It was not even an issue.
This was in 1953.
In 2003, the Vatican handed down official anti-trans rules. The only reason they started munching Hater Tots was a priest with an agenda that was misinformed by the blatantly transphobic ideology and pseudoscience of the 1980s. He got on Ratzinger’s good side and persuaded him to make transphobia official Church policy when there was no precedent for that at all. Then Ratz became the pope and ushered in a new era of benighted bigotry. The new pope has expressed remarkably liberal attitudes toward gays, but it remains to be seen whether he’ll accept trans people too.
Should we be surprised that a church that expects celibacy from the clergy and the unmarried expects it from people with alternative urges? The sin seems to be acting on urges outside the boundaries, not having them.
Which brings up the obvious question, is sex within a marriage not performed by the Catholic church considered by the church as sex outside of marriage?
Reminds me of Yakov Smirnoff (or Putin but no joking): “We have no gay people in Russia—there are homosexuals but they are not allowed to be gay about it. The punishment is seven years locked in prison with other men and there is a three-year waiting list for that.”
It is not a sin, in the Catholic view, to experience either homosexual or heterosexual urges. It’s what you do in response to the urges that may be considered sinful.
It’s more that the Catholic church has been around so much longer than Evangelical Protestant ones, and so they have recognized that conversion therapy doesn’t work*, thus they no longer push it.
*Even the Spanish Inquisition couldn’t make it work, and they were much more persevering than current ‘therapists’.
As a transgender Catholic woman it has been my calling for the past 10 years to research the churches policy around gender identity. There is no public catholic teaching or policy on transgender issues. The 2003 report of a secret policy is just that a report and it has never been corroborated by any other source. Because of the gender apartheid that exists in the church the hierarchy has removed transgender people from positions of service as priests and nuns and refused to change baptismal certificates.
Things were very bad under Pope Benedict but now under Francis things are starting to look better. Pope Francis has embraced a transgender man who wrote him a letter, an American Bishop has said that it is not in conflict with being a good catholic. An intersexed woman has started on the path to becoming a nun. Transwomen have had funeral masses where clergy used preferred names and feminine pronouns. Given the churches gender issues it will be a long time before full dignity and recognition bu this pope gives me hope.
Like I said, I was raised Catholic and I have no reason to think my experience was atypical. It was like this:
Being predisposed towards your own gender: fine, people are born that way
Thinking about sex, whether it’s your own gender or not: sinful, and should be resisted
Actually having sex outside of marriage: sin
But conversion therapy as defined hasn’t been out that long. Early 20th century, maybe. While various Inquisitions leveled charges of “sodomy,” that was more evidence of heresy, and not the specific reason they were given the comfy chair.
I don’t think thinking about sex with your spouse would be sinful. Thinking about sex with someone not your spouse would come under “coveting the wife of another,” and be sinful.
Or having sex within marriage when the possibility of conception has been artificially prevented. What are regarded as “artificial” methods are excluded (condoms, contraceptive pills, etc), while “natural” methods are OK, such as rhythm.
As far as I know, it’s also OK to have sex with a spouse who naturally is unable to have children, such as someone who is naturally sterile or a post-menopausal woman. (The theory is that a miracle would potentially be possible that would allow such a person could have children, as in the case of Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.)
I don’t know whether that theory could be extended to a transwoman. Technically speaking a transwoman has undergone surgical sterilization (as a male).
Yes, I agree on both counts. I neglected to mention these specifics, but I was just trying to say that fantasizing about screwing someone of your own gender is considered sinful because fantasizing about screwing in general is considered sinful ('cept if it’s your spouse).
This is correct too…and isn’t really consistent when you think about it.
But unlike intersex, the church’s opinion on this would affect a big group of people: post-menopausal women, pregnant women (if they have sex, it’s obviously not to conceive), those people who become infertile because of injuries or complications with a past birth, as well as people who are just infertile for unknown reasons etc etc. Asking millions to refrain from sex with their lawful partner is not going to be a successful idea.
No, it has nothing to do with the theoretical possibility of a miracle. The Catholic philosophical tradition tends to define things in term of what they are for, not just in terms of what they are made of or what they consist of. The act of sex between a (biological, chromosomal) man and a (biological, chromosomal) woman is intrinsically ordered towards procreation even if, in the particular circumstances, procreation is unlikely or impossible. (The woman is already pregnant, one or other party is infertile, etc.) But sex between any other combination of people is not so ordered, and hence in the Catholic understanding is a materially different thing.
I’ll just say that this was one of the rationales we were given in class in my parochial high school, with the recognition that my instructors may not have been providing the official Church position.
