Are transgendered people allowed to get married or be in relationships?

[TheRealJuliane]

What do you mean?

I mean, that this forum is constantly being assaulted by pro-homosexual and now pro-“transgender” members, that this tony identity is not alone in trying to yank our chains as Catholics, and that “he” (I don’t know if it really is a “he” or a “she”) came out and told CopticChristian that was what the aim was.

 

[Crescentinus]

I mean, that this forum is constantly being assaulted by pro-homosexual and now pro-“transgender” members, that this tony identity is not alone in trying to yank our chains as Catholics, and that “he” (I don’t know if it really is a “he” or a “she”) came out and told CopticChristian that was what the aim was.

True, and “he” looked only more pathetic in doing so.

 

[CopticChristian]

I mean, that this forum is constantly being assaulted by pro-homosexual and now pro-“transgender” members, that this tony identity is not alone in trying to yank our chains as Catholics, and that “he” (I don’t know if it really is a “he” or a “she”) came out and told CopticChristian that was what the aim was.

Real,

I never saw the post that was quoted. I believe that whoever Tony is relevant to this. Tony found this site. I did not go looking for Tony. Tony was drawn to pose questions that were responded to. Tony may have learned something. What is important is that Tony may not be aware that there were 4900 viewers that learned something. If any life was touched then something was accomplished. I learned quite a bit from this dialogue as I am sure everyone that saw what I saw and perhaps Tony may be seeing this now. Prayers are welcome for Tony and me.

 

[Viviphilia]

I mean, that this forum is constantly being assaulted by pro-homosexual and now pro-“transgender” members, that this tony identity is not alone in trying to yank our chains as Catholics, and that “he” (I don’t know if it really is a “he” or a “she”) came out and told CopticChristian that was what the aim was.

I’m not assaulting this forum. I am here because my Catholic father stopped talking to me after I came out as transgender and I hoped to learn something about his thinking in order to reconcile our relationship. From what I’ve seen so far, I guess he must be filled with irrational hatred towards me due to his prejudice and ignorance of my situation.

 

[CopticChristian]

I’m not assaulting this forum. I am here because my Catholic father stopped talking to me after I came out as transgender and I hoped to learn something about his thinking in order to reconcile our relationship. From what I’ve seen so far, I guess he must be filled with irrational hatred towards me due to his prejudice and ignorance of my situation.

Vivophilia,

Parent-Child relationships are difficult. I am sad that your Father does not talk to you. It is impossible to know what your father thinks without asking your Father just as your Father cannot know what you think without asking you.

Issues related to expectations as parents cause dismay for both child and parent. I do not need to know more than you have posted here and to ask would do you a diservice. The fact that you have sadness for whatever reason beause of a broken relationship with a parent is sad for me and I am sure for others as well.

Sadness is an emotion that causes reflection. I have learned to allow sadness to come and go. Sadness is a motivator for change. All emotions in my experience are motivators or catalysts for action and in particular sadness. It requires patience, understanding, and a committment to allow it to come and not dwell. In my experience sadness while present isn’t so bad as long as you can accept that it is there and will pass and it does.

I pray for you and your father that you can learn from this sadness and be able to talk again.

 

[SwizzleStick]

I’m not assaulting this forum. I am here because my Catholic father stopped talking to me after I came out as transgender and I hoped to learn something about his thinking in order to reconcile our relationship. From what I’ve seen so far, I guess he must be filled with irrational hatred towards me due to his prejudice and ignorance of my situation.

You have used the word hate a number of times when someone has disagreed with your view. Personally, I have seen no hate directed toward you, only Truth.

As far as your relationship problems with your Dad, I am sorry. His job is to instill the Faith in you, to raise you Catholic, to see you live a life as a devout Catholic. Your rejection of that for a alternative lifestyle likely is not filling him with hatred, but profound grief and frustration instead.

I will pray for both of you.

 

[Cherry5]

You have used the word hate a number of times when someone has disagreed with your view. Personally, I have seen no hate directed toward you, only Truth.

As far as your relationship problems with your Dad, I am sorry. His job is to instill the Faith in you, to raise you Catholic, to see you live a life as a devout Catholic. Your rejection of that for a alternative lifestyle likely is not filling him with hatred, but profound grief and frustration instead.

I will pray for both of you.

My image of our Father in heaven is one who is ever loving, empathizes with us, feels our pain, will not give up on us, will always be willing to open his arms and welcome us - no matter what! give us another chance and loves us the way we are (we do not have to change for Him to love us - that is unconditional love). Not distance Himself from us, or stop “talking” with us - regardless of what we do specially if we look up to him for his love.

This is what we hope our earthly fathers would mirror, yes - I know we are all weak and don’t always measure up.

So my prayer is that your father is filled with the grace from our Father so that he can open his heart to you and make you feel loved. I understand your pain, that your father means so much to you is wonderful. God Bless you Viv.

 

[Viviphilia]

As far as your relationship problems with your Dad, I am sorry. His job is to instill the Faith in you, to raise you Catholic, to see you live a life as a devout Catholic. Your rejection of that for a alternative lifestyle likely is not filling him with hatred, but profound grief and frustration instead.

Your assumption that I am not a Catholic or that I have rejected Catholicism is unjustified.

 

[SwizzleStick]

Your assumption that I am not a Catholic or that I have rejected Catholicism is unjustified.

I stand corrected, I did not know that you are Catholic.

If you are a man living as a woman, a man who goes ahead with surgical alterations and hormone therapy to change your appearance into that of a woman, then you are rejecting the teachings of the Church in favor of an alterative lifestyle.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

I’m not assaulting this forum. I am here because my Catholic father stopped talking to me after I came out as transgender and I hoped to learn something about his thinking in order to reconcile our relationship. From what I’ve seen so far, I guess he must be filled with irrational hatred towards me due to his prejudice and ignorance of my situation.

You have spent a lot of time arguing with us about what the Church teaches. I don’t think you’re trying to understand your father as much as you are trying to work out your arguments either to justify your forward path into living as a woman, or maybe you are going to argue the point with your father. Good luck with that one.

I know you see things only from your own perspective, but try to imagine what your parents are feeling. They know you only as a male. Now you are saying, “I am not a male, I am a female.” I would say to my son, in that situation, “No, son, you are still a male, you’re just messed up in the head.” Yes, that is what I would say. And it would be very difficult for me to go forward with any kind of relationship. What you are proposing to do is like eliminating yourself as his son. How would that feel, from HIS perspective? How does one grieve for a person who is effectively gone, yet still present but in some foreign format?

Maybe if you can empathize with what your father is going through, you can stop arguing about this long enough to think objectively about it.

 

[Cherry5]

I would say to my son, in that situation, “No, son, you are still a male, you’re just messed up in the head.” Yes, that is what I would say. And it would be very difficult for me to go forward with any kind of relationship.

Very, very sad… a parent that cannot accept their child and love them at a crucial and painful time! fortunately there are many parents that can in fact look past this and love their kids and accept them the way they are.
God bless you both.

 

[Corki]

Very, very sad… a parent that cannot accept their child and love them at a crucial and painful time! fortunately there are many parents that can in fact look past this and love their kids and accept them the way they are.
God bless you both.

There was nothing in her post that indicated that she would not accept or love her son if this hypothetical situation happened. Love does not mean that you agree with or embrace every wrong decision your child makes. Acceptance of the person does not mean acceptance of behavior. To ignore or repress your beliefs or morals just to spare someone’s feelings is not loving. Nor is allowing your child to fall into sin without speaking up about it and at least* trying *to change his mind.

 

[Crescentinus]

Very, very sad… a parent that cannot accept their child and love them at a crucial and painful time! fortunately there are many parents that can in fact look past this and love their kids and accept them the way they are.
God bless you both.

To enable and embrace the sin of other people is hardly love at all. It is hatred directed against another person’s soul.

 

[Mintaka]

What you’re talking about is becoming a eunuch, but with some cosmetic apparatus added.

Every so often, there’s a wave of people either wanting to become eunuchs (for various sexual unhappiness reasons) or wanting to make their kids eunuchs (in hope of giving them a lucrative musical or Byzantine bureaucratic career).

Every time that the Church has been lenient and nice and accepting and welcoming about this, hundreds of thousands of boys and young men have suffered from it. So then the Church has to crack down on it. And afterwards, everybody complains about how the Church enabled this cruel eunuch system for way too long, and what could they have been thinking?

Now, as for the opposite kind of surgery, the Church has never allowed female genital mutilation, despite the fact that many non-Catholic societies like it. So that’s really not going to change.

As for myself, I’ve spent a lot of years feeling like I ought to be dead and am really meant to kill myself. But I don’t kill myself, because I know perfectly well that my brain is giving me impulses that make no sense and are false-to-facts. Were I to kill myself, it wouldn’t prove that my suicidal impulses had been right all along; it would mean that I allowed myself to succumb to delusions, or that my sanity had tottered beyond my ability to think of other things instead.

You seem to think that the way to deal with false-to-facts thoughts is to go with them; your parents disagree strongly because they are dealing with objective reality. It is very sad that you suffer from such strong impulses; but that doesn’t make them right.

If someone helped and encouraged me to follow my strong feelings of longing for death to their logical conclusion, that person would be my enemy, not my friend. He would be taking advantage of my weaknesses.

 

[HNA444]

There was nothing in her post that indicated that she would not accept or love her son if this hypothetical situation happened. Love does not mean that you agree with or embrace every wrong decision your child makes. Acceptance of the person does not mean acceptance of behavior. To ignore or repress your beliefs or morals just to spare someone’s feelings is not loving. Nor is allowing your child to fall into sin without speaking up about it and at least* trying *to change his mind.

I agree! What about thinking of your parents before yourself and making them happy?

 

[HNA444]

To enable and embrace the sin of other people is hardly love at all. It is hatred directed against another person’s soul.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Your assumption that I am not a Catholic or that I have rejected Catholicism is unjustified.

SwizzleStick is not alone in mistaking you are not Catholic. Anybody following your postings would.

Before you disclosed that

I am here because my Catholic father stopped talking to me after I came out as transgender and I hoped to learn something about his thinking in order to reconcile our relationship. From what I’ve seen so far, I guess he must be filled with irrational hatred towards me due to his prejudice and ignorance of my situation.

you posted this

I am very much interested in Catholic beliefs about a variety of topics, including but not limited to, transgender people and the loving relationships which they frequently engage in. That is why I am posting at this forum. If you find me boring, may I suggest reading a different thread?

‘Very much interested in Catholic beliefs’ give the impression that one is or has not been exposed to basics of Catholicism and is therefore not a Catholic.

Do you see how you lead a reader in a direction even if that may not be your intent and then you take some sort of offense?

Btw, even if your father were not Catholic, most fathers would be devastated with news that his adult son would be living as and transitioning to a woman. It would be the same, perhaps worse, with news that a son is gay. Such a reaction is not irrational hatred.
,

 

[Viviphilia]

I stand corrected, I did not know that you are Catholic.

I haven’t given any indication as to whether I’m Catholic or not, I just wanted to point out how you keep making assumptions about me. Thanks for proving my point once again.

And let me add another point, I haven’t given any indication as to my sexual orientation or relationship status either. So think about that for a moment as you reflect on your claims not to have seen any hatred here.

If you are a man living as a woman, a man who goes ahead with surgical alterations and hormone therapy to change your appearance into that of a woman, then you are rejecting the teachings of the Church in favor of an alterative lifestyle.

Exactly which Church teaching requires that transgender people not take what is a scientifically validated medical therapy for our condition? That’s the kind of thing I’m here to learn, so please, fill me in on all the details.

The 2003 film “Normal” examines a marriage where a spouse comes out as transgender and decides to transition genders. Since this thread’s topic is on transgender marriage and relationships, the Church’s teachings on transition therapy are certainly relevant.

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Relevant paragraphs from linked article provided below:

Each person is a precious human being made in God’s image and likeness with both a body and a soul. Vatican II’s “Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World” asserted, “Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day” (No. 14). St. Paul also reminds us that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19), and therefore we should not degrade our bodily dignity by allowing the body to participate in the act of sin. Moreover, such sin hurts the body of the Church. For this reason, the Church teaches, “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reason, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law” (Catechism, No. 2297).

A transsexual will never be able to enter validly into the sacrament of Matrimony. A man who undergoes sexual reassignment will never really be a woman, or vice versa; rather, a man will be a man (or a woman will be a woman), except with a mutilated body and profound psychological disordering. Moreover, a transsexual will never be able to consummate the marriage in the fullest expression of love of husband and wife, and never will there be a real openness to life and the creation of children.

Straight Answers: The Morality of ‘Sex Change’ Operations
By By Fr. William P. SaundersHerald Columnist (From the issue of*10/20/05)
,

 

[InSearchofGrace]

Long-Term Follow-Up of Transsexual Persons Undergoing Sex Reassignment Surgery: Cohort Study in Sweden

Conclusion

This study found substantially higher rates of overall mortality, death from cardiovascular disease and suicide, suicide attempts, and psychiatric hospitalisations in sex-reassigned transsexual individuals compared to a healthy control population. This highlights that post surgical transsexuals are a risk group that need long-term psychiatric and somatic follow-up. Even though surgery and hormonal therapy alleviates gender dysphoria, it is apparently not sufficient to remedy the high rates of morbidity and mortality found among transsexual persons.