Science, Faith, and Gender

[airitech]

Many posts that I’ve seen that claim it’s unnatural to be transgender or nonbinary argue that humans are born strictly male or strictly female and that even if a transgender person were to socially and medically transition, undergoing hormone therapy and even gender-affirming surgeries, they cannot change their sex chromosomes and therefore their gender identity is invalid.

Of course, it’s true that a person cannot change their sex chromosomes, but it’s also true that even at this basic level of “binary” differentiation between sexes, there are natural variations. Some people are born with a single sex chromosome (either X or Y), others with three or more (such as XXX, XXY, XYY), and some people whose physical sex is by all other accounts male are born with XX chromosomes.

People affected by the conditions described above might not necessarily identify as transgender, but I bring those conditions up to point out that even at a biological level there are natural fluctuations or discrepancies in the ways that our bodies are physically, biologically “male” or “female.”
Gender dysphoria is a result of an individual feeling as though the physical assigned sex of their body doesn’t match up with their gender - that is, their internal awareness of what it is to be male/female/nonbinary and their personal gender identity.

I know there aren’t official statements from the Church for all of these topics, especially as many of them have only recently begun to gain traction as social concerns, but as far as tradition is meant to guide us, how could we argue that being transgender/choosing to socially/medically transition is unnatural (even immoral or sinful, as I’ve seen) when even our biology on the chromosomal level is not a clean-cut binary? If God created (or allows for the natural occurrence of) these sort of discrepancies between chromosomes or other sex characteristics that I mentioned, how can we argue that a discrepancy between one’s sex and gender is unnatural or sinful?

 

[AZ42]

Just to clarify, having no X chromosomes is not possible. There must always be at least one X.

 

[otjm]

2 points for starters: I don’t know anyone arguing that a discrepancy between one’s sex and gender is an of itself sinful. Homosexuality in and of itself - Same Sex Attraction - is not sinful. Acting on it is.

the second point is that I have not seen that Xs and Ys in unusual portions leads to these issues of gender dysphoria. People are not going through this issue because they had a chromosomal test; the issue is between their ears. And unless research has tied dysphoria to chromosomes, that is a non starter, aka a red herring.

From what little I have read which seems to support the “issue between their ears” is reports from doctors who have done sex change operations; their subsequent followup has indicated that the operations either are not helping the individual, or perhaps even aggravating the problems the individual was having; and those same doctors have said they will do no more. Given their comments and observations run counter to the social mantra, the comments are not gaining traction.

 

[Stanz]

You make a very solid point! While I would like to comment on chromosomes and biology, I will leave that to the side, since as you say, there are always exceptions, in a way that science does not fully explain. I want to first address some presuppositions for which are the real reasons this can become a confusing mess, in the light of what I understand the Church teaches, which is quite scientific in the truest sense.

Discrepancies between biology and ‘gender identity’, like any discrepancy between reality and mind, is a mental error. It could be a merely logical mistake, or perhaps a psychological illness. For a man to believe that he is a woman, does not make him a woman. Now for a man to wish to be a woman, is simply to wish to be someone else. This doesn’t make him a woman either.
The Church trusts when science says a man is a man, and not a woman, same as when, under scientific examination, science declares he is not a chicken or a teapot either.
It is quite understandable that in an era in which men and women declare the other to have more privileges, natural or civil, that it leads to a kind of jealousy of ‘gender identity’. I have felt this myself.
Emotion may make a helpful indicator, but it never makes a good navigator.

The Church teaches that gender and sex are sacred, for the simple reason that it’s natural and scientific purpose is procreation.
Why? It’s in the word. It is the participation and cooperation with God in the creation of another human soul. To use it for other reasons is a defilement of this sacred function.
While it is unfortunate that people are born without the possibility of being a father or mother, a gender-affirming surgery does not rectify it, and a gender-change destroys it.
If an XX girl can be born with the body in the likeness of a boy, she is not capable of being a mother as a result, but she could not either grow into a man, nor even have the appropriate XY DNA to provide in procreation to be a father.

Now as for the actual nature of binary-sex, it is incorrect to say that it isn’t clean cut. There is only X and Y. There is no Z, or any other form of chromosome. There is no other kind of gender element than masculinity or femininity.
Secondly, to back this up, men are XY, and share the X chromosome with women. However, this does not compromise the masculinity of all the men who all have X.
Anyone who has a Y chromosome (or more) is a male. Anyone who does not, is a female.

There are natural charisms and virtues distinct to help a man become a man, or a woman a woman, and they can be learnt from eachother, and should be, in good time.
But this difference is a difference in family role, domestic or ecclesial, and not in biology or psychology.

I hope this helps
God Bless

 

[Wesrock]

It’s not a matter of whether it happens in nature, it’s about what’s the natural ordering of human nature. Certainly it’s the natural blueprint of a human being to have two arms, but it certainly occurs in nature that this natural development is sometimes inhibited and doesn’t manifest properly. Likewise, it’s natural among human beings to either produce viable small gametes or large gametes, or at least to be ordered to producing one or the other if the body develops in a healthy manner. The nature of being human, the “blueprint,” is that there are two such sexes. Sometimes the development is inhibited. Sometimes people experience legitimate gender dysphoria, probably due to some development in the brain in many cases. But this doesn’t make mutilating the function of a healthy body in accord with human nature.

 

[thistle]

I know there aren’t official statements from the Church for all of these topics, especially as many of them have only recently begun to gain traction as social concerns, but as far as tradition is meant to guide us, how could we argue that being transgender/choosing to socially/medically transition is unnatural (even immoral or sinful, as I’ve seen) when even our biology on the chromosomal level is not a clean-cut binary? If God created (or allows for the natural occurrence of) these sort of discrepancies between chromosomes or other sex characteristics that I mentioned, how can we argue that a discrepancy between one’s sex and gender is unnatural or sinful?

http://www.religioustolerance.org/transsexu15.htm

 

[Angel_Gabriel]

Some people are born with a single sex chromosome (either X or Y), others with three or more (such as XXX, XXY, XYY), and some people whose physical sex is by all other accounts male are born with XX chromosomes.

Men who have XX chromosomes also have a part of the Y chromosome attached to one of the X chromosomes. It won’t be detected unless a certain type of chromosome test is done. They are also infertile frequently. It is that portion of the Y chromosome that causes male characteristics to develop. The Y chromosome is very small compared to the X. XXX females and XYY males typically have very few issues if any and most can be learning disabilities or the fact that they may be taller than average. (This issues are more common than you realize…most people dont’ know about them unless they have a karyotype.) XXY males can be infertile and have some issues with breast development but a lot of the time they don’t’ even know they have the extra chromosome until a karyotype is done.

The only issue that I’ve seen that could cause a true problem is with Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome…these people are XY but b/c of a genetic defect they can’t use testosterone and so develop external female characteristics but keep the male testes. They are always infertile but hormone therapy won’t help b/c testosterone has no androgenic effect on them. It is converted to estrogen. My daughter has an X chromosome duplication…so I’ve done quite a bit of research on all this sex chromosome business lol.

I think from what I’ve read that the majority of gender dysphoria isn’t associated with a defect in hormones or chromosomes…at least nothing has been found yet. There may be some issues with how the brain develops and how it reacts to normal hormone levels. But again the research is still in it’s infancy.

 

[MikeInVA]

People affected by the conditions described above might not necessarily identify as transgender, but I bring those conditions up to point out that even at a biological level there are natural fluctuations or discrepancies in the ways that our bodies are physically, biologically “male” or “female.”

No, people born with genetic abnormalities are not transgender. Transgenderism is behavioral not biological. I think it is wrong to lump the two issues together.

 

[Dovekin]

Certainly it’s the natural blueprint of a human being to have two arms, but it certainly occurs in nature that this natural development is sometimes inhibited and doesn’t manifest properly.

If you are going to offer this analogy, shouldn’t you consider the ramifications? If someone has an inhibition of their two arms, what do we do? Do we condemn efforts, including surgery, to reverse the inhibition? Do we allow the use of prosthetics to make them like a person with two arms? etc. Answers to those questions should govern how we treat those with gender dysphoria, no?

Transgendered persons and traditionalists share a joint belief, that male and female are different. The transgendered literally stake their lives on it, up to altering their bodies to be one rather than the other. The dispute is about where the difference is located, between the legs or in the head. If you accept that there are differences “in the head,” you have to decide what to do when there is a mismatch between the physical sex and the psychological gender. Do you insist that the physical determines the person?

These are difficult issues, especially since most of us have strong sexual identities. It is easy to stumble. If you pass a law that people have to use the bathroom of the gender identified at birth, what will you do with Mr Jones, a 30 year employee and colleague, starts going to the Ladies room? It is unlikely, since the law is unlikely to uncover a deeply held secret like that. Solutions are rarely one size fits all.

 

[Wesrock]

Wesrock:

Certainly it’s the natural blueprint of a human being to have two arms, but it certainly occurs in nature that this natural development is sometimes inhibited and doesn’t manifest properly.

If you are going to offer this analogy, shouldn’t you consider the ramifications? If someone has an inhibition of their two arms, what do we do? Do we condemn efforts, including surgery, to reverse the inhibition? Do we allow the use of prosthetics to make them like a person with two arms? etc. Answers to those questions should govern how we treat those with gender dysphoria, no?

The purpose of prosthetics and other medical treatments for a person missing an arm or part of an arm are to restore healthy function insofar as that is possible. A person with gender dysphoria has a real, condition that affects them, and I don’t want to minimize that (a lot of opponents, for lack of a better word, seem to disregard such things). However, surgical correction in this case isn’t restoring healthy function – the body is healthy and functioning correctly – but is mutilating it and generally destroying healthy, functioning organs in order to accomdate a person’s mental perception of himself or herself. That perception deserves care and a compassionate response, and certainly society needs to come further still in providing such a compassionate response, but compassionate doesn’t in itself mean encouraging any and all types of treatment without bounds. It’s certainly a delicate issue, though.

 

[OraLabora]

http://www.religioustolerance.org/transsexu15.htm

There is a gross inaccuracy in this article:

The church has refused to marry some couples in the past who cannot conceive children.

This is not true. The Church refuses to marry couples who are irreversibly impotent, not couples who are sterile. Sterile couples may marry.

Of course a male-to-female transsexual who has had gender-reassignment surgery is, by definition, “irreversibly impotent”, as the genitalia is surgically altered into female genitalia.

What is not stated is what happens when a transsexual already married validly, undergoes gender reassignment. They remain validly married. I know of a former colleague who did undergo reassignment, and his/her wife decided to remain in the marriage. She said, apparently: “when I said ‘for better or for worse’ I meant it”.

their subsequent followup has indicated that the operations either are not helping the individual, or perhaps even aggravating the problems the individual was having; and those same doctors have said they will do no more.

I believe the standards have been tightened on who can be accepted for surgery and that has resulted in better results. The WPATH standards of care (WPATH = World Professional Association for Transgender Care) reports that the rate of “regret” is about 1-1.5% for male-to-female patients, and <1% for male-to-female, and that the rate of satisfaction with the surgical results is >87% for MtF and >97% for FtM.

It’s noteworthy to point out that WPATH standards by no means suggests that surgery is the only treatment. They in fact take an individualized approach where the least invasive intervention is preferred when possible. Suggested therapies from least to most invasive include living part time in the desired gender role, living full-time in the desired gender role, hormone therapy, and lastly, surgery, with all levels involving psychotherapy.

There’s a lot of misinformation on this condition, so I thought it advisable to at least put forward the current clinical thinking on the subject so any discussion is at least grounded in the latest science and therapeutic approaches.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

This is a complicated issue that I’m also uncertain about.

I accept the church’s teaching on creation, marriage, two sexes, etc.

But I think the Church is going to have to develop its pastoral approach to transgendered persons. These people don’t make decision to transition on a whim. Some are cornered such that they perceive it to be their only option. And yet many in the Church would like to call this sin, at least objectively.

I’m not sure. I wonder what Jesus would say if he were here.

 

[OraLabora]

This has been a real struggle for me as well, as a close family member is transgendered. I can see that this person is immeasurably happier since coming out and undergoing transition, and all around better adjusted and socially better integrated. This, from being a very inward-looking, and depressive person who lived in complete isolation. I can’t imagine God wants her to be miserable for the rest of her life.

I discussed this with a monk I am very close to as I work with him in the abbey’s library. He said that while the broad doctrine of the Church is correct, pastorally one has to consider each case on its individual merits, and take an approach that focuses on that person’s well-being. The law serves mankind, and not mankind the law, and any law that does not allow that there may be exceptions and circumstances that significantly reduce culpability for gravely sinful acts, is not a merciful one.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

Something that confuses me is that our morality is based on a pre-fallen human nature. In other words, the moral teaching of the church reflects the ideal human condition. But we are not in an ideal world, we are in a fallen world, where even our biology (our bodies) are prone to corruption.

This mis-match makes things difficult to navigate. You have the ideal on the one hand. But what if you’re not even born under that umbrella? This is especially noteworthy today when it comes to sexual and gender issues.

 

[OraLabora]

One monk I know says that the problem with the sexual teaching of the Church is that it is a sexuality designed for angels…

I think it helps to read the Catechism, especially the section on masturbation, where a number of conditions that reduce culpability are noted. People forget that the three elements for mortal culpability are grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent of the will. I think in the case of the transgendered, the full consent of the will is lacking. For some the pressure is sufficient to lead to suicide. That doesn’t sound, to me, like the transgendered person is doing it just for the fun of it.

 

[RealisticCatholic]

One monk I know says that the problem with the sexual teaching of the Church is that it is a sexuality designed for angels…

As much as I think that’s a funny saying, I think it points to something profound. Because look around and see how many Christians are so eager or able to so easily follow the Church’s teaching. Homosexual persons, sure. How many of them are drawn to the Church’s standards? But other people too: How many Catholics find themselves so ready to follow the teaching on contraception?

This isn’t to say those teachings are wrong. They just seem to be highly ideal. Maybe the Church knows this, and maybe pastors are trained with this is mind.

Maybe we don’t lower the standard, but we show compassion. The issue is: When can you accommodate on individual circumstances? When can you let a gay couple live together? When can you allow an individual to transition to his perceived gender? Does the “ideal” have the final say?

 

[edwest]

Let’s not add masturbation or other conditions to this, further complicating the discussion. When this began in the United States (circa 1980), it was called “sexual reassignment surgery.” I sat down with two surgeons who did the work and was told the basics. In fact, an employee at the hospital where I worked was a woman and had the surgery. Aside from cutting her hair and wearing men’s clothes, I didn’t notice anything else. Back then, it was not heavily discussed.

The real problem, especially for kids, is causing confusion. Reports indicate that any gender confusion in the young resolves itself in most cases as they get older.

 

[Joe_5859]

how could we argue that being transgender/choosing to socially/medically transition is unnatural (even immoral or sinful, as I’ve seen) when even our biology on the chromosomal level is not a clean-cut binary?

Just to comment on this point, the fact that there exists deviations from the norm does not therefore mean there is no norm. Some people are born without limbs. That doesn’t mean we would say it is normal or natural for people to be born without limbs.

 

[OraLabora]

I was using masturbation simply as an example of things that can reduce culpability for grave sexual sin. The CCC gives a good list of such things for masturbation.

I think the issue of minors wanting to undergo transition is problematic on many levels, which is another discussion altogether.

That doesn’t mean we would say it is normal or natural for people to be born without limbs.

Normal, no natural depends on the cause. If thalidomide was the cause, then it’s not natural. If a spontaneous mutation was the cause, then it was natural. Normal, no, but it is something that occurs in nature.

If gender dysphoria occurs in a predictable percentage of the population, and it does, then it is a natural phenomenon. But yes, it is an abnormality. The question is, how do you treat that abnormality? For a person born without a limb, we think nothing of fashioning a prosthetic limb for him or her. It helps the person better deal with their handicap.

So how then, do we help the transgendered better cope with their dysphoria? So far, the only solution that appears to work is transition to some degree. Psychotherapy has failed to effect a remedy, on its own. Combined with transition, it is relatively effective in helping the person cope with his or her changes.

 

[goout]

One monk I know says that the problem with the sexual teaching of the Church is that it is a sexuality designed for angels…

I think it helps to read the Catechism, especially the section on masturbation, where a number of conditions that reduce culpability are noted. People forget that the three elements for mortal culpability are grave matter, full knowledge, and full consent of the will. I think in the case of the transgendered, the full consent of the will is lacking. For some the pressure is sufficient to lead to suicide. That doesn’t sound, to me, like the transgendered person is doing it just for the fun of it.

While it is true that morality is for the good of man and not the other way around, morality does point a person to become his/her best self rather than capitulate to the onerous burden of conversion. In the case of masturbation that you cite, one’s culpability is one thing, but the moral evaluation of it points a person to higher knowledge of God’s call, to repentance, conversion, virtue. And not to using merciful language as an excuse to be static.
And so morality is not for angels, it is for human beings to become more fully human.