Very few transsexuals remain catholic as far as I can tell, most feel outcast and shunned.
All that said, I don’t see Beattie thinking of crosses very much.
Clearly Beatie did not ‘cross’ anything and the last thing she might be thinking of is the suffering on the cross or the suffering of others and the heavy cross they might be bearing.
She is simply a woman who took male hormones for a period of time and thereby grew a beard and then had her breasts removed before reverting back to the fertile woman she was before. She is not a he since she never did ‘change sex’. She is woman who is going to have a baby. It is that simple for me to understand so why the rantings of media types that this is a pregnant male…‘a miracle’?
The bible has a direct correlation to the abomination/sin/forbidden acts in regard to homosexuality and cross-dressing which I, not being a theologian, must assume cross-dressing for the purpose of sex being the sin. There is nothing about intersex or transsexuals in the bible except perhaps if one links some of those who are eunuchs as perhaps having been one or the other and took matters onto themselves.
I think what has happened in the Catholic Church and other relgions has to do with the addition of the ‘T’ to the GLB which of course had always before been related to sexual orientation. Now the ‘T’ is meant to include all gender variances and wrongly I believe adds transsexuals under the ‘T’ and now even intersex to its acronym (GLBTI). What does being a heterosexual transvestite/cross-dresser, (which most transgender are), or even someone born with a sexual medical condition such as IS or TS have to really do with sexual orientation is beyond me? OK, someone may be an intersex and/or a transsexual and also be a homosexual but their primary identity prefix should not be that of their medical condition or even their sexual orientation. I am heterosexual but my primary identity is that of a woman who is also a widow, not a ‘widow woman’. That clarifies it for me without being added to another identity such as ‘bingo woman’ or some other secondary interest or behavior. Silly? Of course!
But the reaction of the church seems clear. It has assumed that since transgender willingly have been included and politically identify to the GLB then they too must relate to homosexuality and accept that identity and/or attachment to homosexuality which most religions consider a sin if practiced. Heck, they kill homosexuals in many of the Muslim countries and allow surgery for intersex and transsexuals in some like Iran.
It is not that the church has turned its back on those who are IS, TS or even homosexuals…it is the mischaracterization of them to a perceived practicing sinful act which is defined in the bible. The confusion in the church is the linkage of those with medical problems to a grouping which seems to define forbidden acts and adds others as if they too are in accord with those acts.
My two cents: if a **practicing **homosexual then you are committing a sinful act. If an intersex or transsexual who firmly believes that they must seek medical correction then that should not be anything but a correction of the body to the whole as stated by Pope Paul VI in a letter to a practicing Catholic California surgeon in answer to his query back in the '70’s.
The Catholic Church at one time allowed the amendment of baptismal certificates for those who had corrective surgery. But since the rise of the transgender confusion it has been given cause to halt that practice. To many like Beatie I suspect appear much closer to the transgender perspective than to either the intersex and/or the real transsexuals and that needs clarification if the understanding of either the IS or the TS is ever again addressed favorably within the Catholic Church. I suspect the damage is already done and the Beatie’s of this world have added to it.
Lynn-D
