Is transgender a sin?

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Dale_M said:
Yep, that apparently is what the secret document says. I’m sorry if I gave the impression that sex change is always sinful. Its not a position I personally hold, and I don’t think the Church always holds it either.

As for the original news article, it was published five years ago and the online archives of the Catholic News Service don’t go back that far. So we are stuck with third party versions of the original.

As for the meaning of the phrase sub secretum, I don’t know. I don’t think I had seen it before reading the news article (which I did see five years ago).
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Thanks Dale, if we can dig up this article from this canon law journal then that MAY give some further insight into the document too. Were there any other media outlets that reported it? I’m not doubting you, I just want to see if I can find any other information. I know there WILL be people who doubt you though, so I’m going to try and find it for you in the Wayback Machine 🙂

A Vatican source said the text was prepared largely by Jesuit Father Urbano Navarrete, now a retired canon law professor at Rome’s Gregorian University.

In 1997, Father Navarrete wrote an article on transsexualism in an authoritative canon law journal and has been consulted by the doctrinal congregation on specific cases involving transsexualism and hermaphroditism.
 
jfhh said:
I’m going to try and find it for you in the Wayback Machine 🙂
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Great! I hadn’t thought of that, and yes, getting the original will be more persuasive than a third party rendering of the article.
 
coco2 said:
I don’t think it could be a sin, and these people suffer so much.
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As Catholics, we believe that suffering entered the world through sin, and so we can realistically say that the greater the sin the greater the suffering. In this case, I believe the sin was not your friend’s, but someone who sinned against her. Whomever it was, and it may have been a father or a mother, an aunt or an uncle, or even a close friend - has rejected her femininity at a very young age causing her to believe that her only hope for acceptance was in siding with the masculine and attempting to emulate that. This, of course, creates a massive confusion because she cannot escape who she is mentally. She is and will always be a woman, no matter how she may try to act otherwise.

I grew up with a less severe form of gender confusion. My mother rejected her own femininity, and my stepfather (the only male in my life) called me Michael. Furthermore, he was constantly making fun of women and she belittled feminine behaviors such as discussion relationships and wearing makeup. Their rejection of my femininity made it hard for me to form friendships with other women and girls, and it made me more inclined to hang out with guys and mimic masculine behaviors in order to fit in. It still causes me some trouble, but with the grace of God I am healing and coming to appreciate my womanhood for all that it is. My confusion was man made, not God made, even though it started from such a young age.
 
I do accept my sexual identity. I am a woman. However, I have a birth-defect: a Y-chromosome.

Transgenderism/transsexuality is not something which is man-made in all cases. I came from a normal family, was raised by loving parents, have two sisters. I was never abused, nor was my masculinity ever impugned–in fact it was encouraged.

But there was always something indicating that all was not right, actions that set me apart from other boys. I had a fascination with my sisters’ toys (though my attention eventually shifted to my Star Wars and Batman toys) and even their dance things. I recall feeling jealous when I saw them in skirts, though I never wore women’s clothing until recently.

The way I see things, God created a good world. But the Fall resulted in changes to the world, which is why we have birth defects, cancers, and everything. My particular case is only an extreme one, and another sad consequence of Original Sin. With Jesus Christ the world is renewed, though the effects will linger until His work is done.
 
God bless you, Scarlet. I’ll be praying for you. I’m sure your life journey will be more difficult than most.
 
I don’t know. There’s a woman in my department at work who has recently announced that she’s identifying as a man. She was always a very “manly” kind of woman so I am not surprised. I have an in-law whose brother dresses and acts like a woman. I love this guy, he really is a nice guy, but dear Lord he is one confused individual. All I can do is pray, and leave them to God and His mercy.
 
No, I do not think so, since the huge amount of hurt (lifelong) is/has been creating a severe penance in itself. Trust Him! Pray and discern clearly (including not going against what the Magisterium says about disordered actions) as to what the Lord wants for this person to do.
 
Any operation to change the body of course would be a sin. But being a person having attributes physically of both genders can’t be a sin as it is the way some people are born. It is a heavy cross to be sure but God never gives us anything we can’t handle and gives us the rest of the human race to support and console us.
 
goofyjim said:
It is a heavy cross to be sure but God never gives us anything we can’t handle and gives us the rest of the human race to support and console us.
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The majority seem to despise, hate, discriminate and throw us into the trash. I have not been here often the past few weeks, because I am once again homeless (Only temporarily thank goodness). THe landlord has declared that my lifestyle is against the lease contract and terminated it, there’s this thing about ‘living a clean life’ that I suspect refers to drug use and that qualifies enough I guess.

Thank god for libraries though, they are at least warm!
 
pathia said:
The majority seem to despise, hate, discriminate and throw us into the trash. I have not been here often the past few weeks, because I am once again homeless (Only temporarily thank goodness). THe landlord has declared that my lifestyle is against the lease contract and terminated it, there’s this thing about ‘living a clean life’ that I suspect refers to drug use and that qualifies enough I guess.

Thank god for libraries though, they are at least warm!
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I truly believe that landlord was wrong for what he did. Yet I know that won’t help solve your situation. You are in my prayers.
 
I was searching for answer for this question and this is what I found:
Sex Change Surgery
Question from on 04-12-2004:
Q: After watching a show about sex change surgery it got me thinking. The show was about men who changed to women and how they stayed with their wives. It was really bizarre! What is the Church’s position on this topic? If a member has this surgery, can they receive the sacraments?
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A: In very rare cases of a child born with confused gender, meaning the sexual organs are not correct, or are of mixed type, the Church would allow surgery to restore a “normal” external genitalia of the appropriate sex.
On the other hand, transgender operations of the type you are asking about are mutilations of a normal body motivated by confused psychological gender. The solution is unconfuse the mind and emotions, not mutilate the body.
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Such mutilations would be gravely sinful. Obviously a person could repent from having done it and receive the sacraments, even if he could not undo the surgery.
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This was written by: Colin B. Donovan, STL on 04-21-2004
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It can be retrieved at the following link: ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=397842&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2008&Author=&Keyword=transgender&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=9&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

I hope this helps. There are some others posts on EWTN dealing with the same question and all have about the same answer.

Pax.
 
Benedict108 said:
I was searching for answer for this question and this is what I found:

It can be retrieved at the following link: ewtn.com/vexperts/showresult.asp?RecNum=397842&Forums=0&Experts=0&Days=2008&Author=&Keyword=transgender&pgnu=1&groupnum=0&record_bookmark=9&ORDER_BY_TXT=ORDER+BY+ReplyDate+DESC&start_at=

I hope this helps. There are some others posts on EWTN dealing with the same question and all have about the same answer.

Pax.
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They are still decidedly mixed. I was operated on as an infant and disagree with the assignment medical science made at the time. Now I can find many doctors that will say male or female, but most will say ‘we can’t be sure’. Yet the church doesn’t really seem to be able to understand this. It was already ‘decided’ once, I cannot undecide it, even though I believe with all my heart and soul it was done in error.
 
I transitioned last year and my father, a devout Catholic, has not spoken to me since and ultimately this has caused a great rift in my family. I was raised Catholic and then became a born-again evangelical Christian from my teenage years until a few years ago. Now I am agnostic, not wishing to affiliate with any one faith because of the turmoil that is caused in the church when people find out you’re TS.

It’s too bad people are so quick to write off this condition as simply being mentally unstable or “sin.” I juggle children and a full time job and do pretty well for a single Mom. I don’t think anyone who really knows me would ever classify me as “mentally ill” nor confused. We’re not confused – well, I was for a long time until I finally came to grips with what I was dealing with and did something about it. My life is much more fulfilling and better now – even my own children will tell you that. But there’s always someone who has to try to throw a monkey wrench in the works and I daresay its usually the devoutly religious acting on what I will call uninformed superstition who do so.

Educate yourselves. This isn’t a mental illness. It’s a birth defect. I was also born with a heart defect and I see nothing wrong with treating this birth defect the same way I treat the cardiomyopathy I was born with.

Thanks for reading…
 
I think that people who have the surgery are telling God he made a mistake and God does not make mistakes.
It is mutalation of the body and our body’s are Temples of the Holy Spirit.
I think Satan has a grip on these people and puts these thoughts in their minds and then uses them to fly in the face of God.
Remember Satan is evil and cunning and will do anything to insult God.
What better way for Satan to insult God than to have the people He loves so much tell him he made a mistake.
Remember Satan is so evil he is capabale of doing this.

Antrim
 
Antrim said:
I think that people who have the surgery are telling God he made a mistake and God does not make mistakes.
It is mutalation of the body and our body’s are Temples of the Holy Spirit.
I think Satan has a grip on these people and puts these thoughts in their minds and then uses them to fly in the face of God.
Remember Satan is evil and cunning and will do anything to insult God.
What better way for Satan to insult God than to have the people He loves so much tell him he made a mistake.
Remember Satan is so evil he is capabale of doing this.

Antrim
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Yet sometimes biological abnormalities happen where achild is born with physical attributes of both genders. This does not mean that God made a mistake any more than if one were born blind. It is a question of how one views the reason for God making us the way He did.
 
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