I am very conscious that the perspective I present at this site is primarily “G”, rather than more broadly LGBT. That’s inevitable: like anyone else, I have more empathy with, and understanding of, my own situation and history than of others’ – but it’s not ideal. I am grateful to those readers who by comments, direct contributions, or email correspondence have helped me to extend my knowledge and understanding of Trans issues in particular, but I remain reluctant to direct comment of my own on a subject so very different to my own experience, even as I acknowledge that there are issues that desperately need raising – in particular, “What is a trans Catholic to do?”
Ideally, the trans situation and personal stories should be told by trans people. It is in this spirit that I present without personal comment, the first in a series of posts based purely on links to material elsewhere on the web (with grateful thanks to Chris Morley, who has fed me many of these links).In the first of these, Joanne Herman at Huffington Posts asks:
Can One Be Transgender and Catholic?
A recent article in the Des Moines Register reported on the firing of Susan McIntyre, a transgender social worker, from her job as a housekeeper at the St. Catherine of Siena Catholic Student Center at Drake University.
What interested me about this story was not the fact that McIntyre was fired by the Bishop of Des Moines, but rather that she converted to Catholicism after her transition from male to female.
The teachings of the Catholic Church, as cited in theDes Moines Register article, maintain that Susan is a man regardless of her gender identity, and that her sexual reassignment surgery was an act of mutilation. The Church instructs those who believe their inward gender is different from their outward gender to battle that belief as a psychological problem, not with surgery.
Why then would a transgender person choose to be Catholic?
At Femulate, Joanne Herman’s question is repeated - and responded to in a series of comments. One full response that I found particularly interesting, by Joann Prinzivalli Jan 20, 2010 08:15 PM, begins with some personal history, the reaction of her own parish priest to how her transitionwas said to be causing some “scandal”, and a history of the subsequent Vatican responses.
August 1999. After 15 years in music ministry with the choir and as the cantor for the 8:00 AM Sunday Mass each week, I was told by Rev. David Clifford, the associate pastor of Holy Name of Jesus parish in Valhalla, New York, that my transition was “causing a scandal in the Church” and I was told not to come back.
Some time in 2000, leaked to Catholic News Service (CNS) in early 2003. The RCC Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issues a “sub secretum” document to papal nuncios all over the world to provide guidance to bishops should any questions arise about how to treat trans people.In 2003, after it turned out that no bishops ever asked any questions, the Vatican sent a copy, still sub secretum, to all the bishops in the world. One from Australia leaked the document to CNS which resulted in an article that summarized the official teachings
-read the full comment at Femulate
Her conclusion?
It is one thing to have a local vibrant, loving, Christian and meaningful parish community with a wonderful pastor who cares for the flock, and quite another when the bishops, the Congregation Propaganda Fideii and the Pope get involved. One can only ignore so much before being called to speak up and shake their dust from one;s sandals.
Can a trans person be a Catholci? Yes.
But that brings up another question – SHOULD a trans person be a Catholic? That answer may be very different.
-read the full comment at Femulate
Books:
Jones, Cindi: Squirrel Cage
Dzmura,Noach: Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community
Salazar, Lisa Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life
Tanis. Justin Edward: Trans-Gendered: Theology, Ministry, and Communities of Faith
Related articles
- Go Trans – Figure
- Greg Voakes: Study Finds Increasing Support for Transgender Rights in the U.S.
- Trans in Politics: Some Notes
- Young Gay Catholic Affirms: “And yet, I am still Catholic”.
- Isaiah 56:3-5
- GLAAD & MTPC Launch ‘I AM: Trans People Speak’ (bilerico.com)
I found this YouTube personal account from a young trans person raised Catholic, helpful.
S/He’d found online reports of a Christmas 2008 speech by Pope Benedict making some hostile statements about sexuality and trans people, and understandably felt rejected and excluded from the Church and stopped attending. Sometime later s/he spoke with the local priest. The priest pointed out the Pope is not the Church. The whole body of God’s people in the Church is the Church and are what really matters. The priest said the Church needs more diversity and will come to recognise, from its diverse membership, errors in its understandings of gender and sexuality. Returned to regular Church attendance as accepted.
Pope Benedict argued that saving humanity from homosexual or transsexual behaviour is as important as saving the rain forests from destruction. (!)
He also urged humanity to listen to the “language of creation” to understand the intended roles of man and woman. Finally, he argued that behaviour beyond traditional heterosexual relations between a married man and woman was a “destruction of God’s work”.
Without actually using the trans word, Benedict took a subtle swipe at those who might undergo sex-change operations or otherwise attempt to alter their God-given gender. Defend “the nature of man against its manipulation,” Benedict told the priests, bishops and cardinals gathered in the ornate Clementine hall: “The Church speaks of the human being as man and woman, and asks that this order is respected.” The Pope again denounced the contemporary idea that gender is a malleable definition. That path, he said, leads to a “self-emancipation of man from creation and the Creator.”
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1868390,00.html#ixzz1qKmL5Z5D
Willem Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy, London School of Economics and Political Science, condemns the Pope’s remarks in a Financial Times blog
http://blogs.ft.com/maverecon/2008/12/another-unholy-mess-created-by-a-message-from-the-pope/#ixzz1qKlIpNXt
The BBC news report http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7796663.stm
A Trans blog’s forthright criticism http://ambergoth.wordpress.com/2008/12/23/pope-benedict-speaks-out-against-homosexuality-and-gender-theory/
Here’s the Pope’s 2008 Christmas speech. The offending passage is after the halfway point.
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20081222_curia-romana_en.html
The Pope and church hierarchy are sadly like a needle stuck in a record groove repeating its ancient ‘natural law’ misunderstandings about gender and sexuality, the same ones it uses to condemn lesbians and gay men as ‘intrinsically disordered’.
However the 2nd Vatican Council decided the Church must pay attention to, learn from and respond to the scientific and other expertise available to us in the world. The Church must not therefore simply stick with its traditions and old interpretations of scripture, but review and update those to properly represent the truth for the people of God in the Church now.
The Church has made major doctrinal changes before, about usury (to accept modern banking) and slavery (to condemn it). It just hasn’t yet listened and learned from the available expertise on trans people, as it has not about lesbian and gay people.
The time is coming when it will do so and will update its teaching and traditions.
In this article for Conscience Magazine a publication of Catholics for Choice http://togetherstyle.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/to-be-or-not-to-be-a-catholic-transexual-speaks-out/
I proposed that the Catholic Church didn’t understand the transgender experience. The church has no official teaching on the subject and that the mistreatment of transgender people is due to existing cultural ‘norms’. It has inspired others in our faith to more research and authorship.
I now have a unauthorized translation of the original Latin document that the sub secretum letter to the bishops was based on. It is clear from this document from 1997 was based on the most conservative thought by the medical community of the time. It’s only purpose was to protect the all male hierarchy in a time of doubt about gender. It specifically makes no judgement about the morality of gender change. Much has changed about how we understand gender identity in the past 16 years in society and in the medical community.
There may come a day when the church has a position on gender identity and until then I will simply appreciate the great support that many of us feel from local parishes and hope that god guides future church leaders to a better understanding of the spiritual journey that is the transgender experience.
Apologies for this late response – it’s been a hectic few days since you placed this useful information. Thanks for the link to the Conscience article. It’s a much neglected subject that needs more exposure and rational debate. I’ll look for a way to promote the article.