Transgender and claiming you’re catholic

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Maddog15

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I was born and raised in and as a Catholic Church. The slightly complicated factor is that I have known since I was 5 years old I was born the wrong gender. I have to the point in my college life and in my life where I have been becoming who I am but who I am is making me question my faith or wonder if this is an obstacle that was put in my life or if I don’t belong as a chatolic follower. I am struggling because I am no way my birth gender I can’t recognize my self in a mirror when forced to dress like a girl. I have been told my friends can easily tell the difference from before I came out as transgender and now that I living my life as my true self. I struggle everyday with is this my faith or am I a different religion? Is being transgender a lifelong sin even when you can’t even recognize yourself as the gender from birth?
 
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Now, here’s the issue, what do you mean by you have known you are the wrong gender?
You are you (?).
Can you describe what you’re trying to say, please?
 
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I am sure you can overcome your difficulties,but for me seek help.
God decided you to be a girl as i understood from your post.
I feel for you,it is very hard.
Be strong.
Prayers can help,too.
 
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Please go talk to your priest. You need help and counseling that we cannot give you here.
 
Talk to a priest and maybe a Catholic psychologist or counselor.

Only so much help can be given over the internet.

Also it seems that English is not your primary language. That will also limit our ability to help you. But we do pray for you.
 
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What feels so different about your authentic self and what are you hoping to do living as male that you cant do living as female?
 
Keep in mind that “true self” is deeper than one’s sexual feelings or ones more comfortable/natural gender role in society.
Being at one with onself and ones own uniqueness or limitations regardless of the expectations (right or wrong) of others, and still being respectful and loving to others…that is surely finding ones true self.

Like they say, before enlightenment its carrying water and chopping wood. After enlightenment its carrying water and chopping wood.

You are most certainly Catholic,
this is a struggle we all face in different ways.
At the moment yours is gender dysphoria.
For others its body image or anorexia or pride or anger or SSA etc etc.
God bless.
 
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And the Church’s doctrine is not especially interested in post-modern deconstructions of the language surrounding gender, and the resultant way that society pigeonholes people into gendered roles based on that language. If you feel that you do not belong in that narrow realm of “womanhood” so schizophrenically constructed by contemporary society, you are not in a minority. You are like most women.

What the Church teaches is that you are you. You are not some point on a gender spectrum. You are not some letter in “LGBTQAM…” You are not one of Facebook’s seventy gender options. You are not one of the silhouette stick figures on the bathroom.

You are an individual human being who is a member of the Body of Christ where there is “neither man nor woman,” in a sense. The sense in which you are female, is that you are a body and a soul, and that body, whether it can or not, was designed to bear life and is so oriented. It does not mean you have to wear dresses.It does not mean you have to have children. It does not mean you have to marry a man. It means you have to embrace your female body as it is because God made you; you are your soul and your body, and God loves you.

Body positivism is such a buzzword on the Left, but it is true. The locus of your problems - or anyone’s problems, is never what their bodies look like.

But please seek help in real life! We cannot communicate with you truly if we are over the internet!
 
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There are people of all faiths who are transgender. There have been at least 2 I know of that have posted on here in the past. They don’t anymore because this forum isn’t a safe place to discuss those things. Talk to your pastor and Google “Catholic transgender” and look for articles and blogs written by Catholics who are transgender. You won’t find a lot and even if you find a blog by a transgender Catholic be prepared for them to nerd out over what ever thing they are into; they don’t cover every issue related to being transgender. If you want to expand a little google transgender Christians.
 
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I might recommend Melinda Selmys in this vein. Her book sexual authenticity is a good book by a post-modern writer on being Catholic and existentialist more or less, and whether she accepts the LGBTQ label as meaningful. She herself identified as “lesbian” for a good chunk of her life.

It is a good book. Very amenable to people who don’t come from home schooled communities and have no personal stake in arguments over Latin at Mass.

However, again, I echo everyone else, talk to people in real life.
 
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Have you ever considered going to a good Catholic therapist?

Also are you still with us?
 
Brittany said:
This is because gender is a physical thing. Your body determines your gender,
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Have you had any formal training in the matters you discuss.
You do not seem to understand the subtle difference between the word “gender” and (morphological) “sex”.

The following link may assist…


You may not agree with the conclusions, but lets not pretend the words by definition are univocally held by everyone and there is no debate to be had.
 
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Kei said:
good Catholic therapist?
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What views should one find to distinguish a good one from a bad one…outright denial of the reality…like all homosexual tendencies are also psychological in origin only?
 
One who is in good standing with the Catholic Faith, as opposed to one who rejects any aspect of the Faith that is required ascent of in any form to be considered a Catholic in good standing with the Catholic Church.

A bad one would be like one who says they are Catholic but disregards legitimate Catholic teaching.
 
Brittany said:
One cannot be born the wrong gender. This is because gender is a physical thing. Your body determines your gender,
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Expanding on this, actually our bodies have a sex, not a gender. The construct of “gender” as something apart from the sex of the body is very new. And very unfortunate as it leads people to believe “they” were born in the wrong body. The idea that there is something called “gender” apart from our biological sex, a social construct, is only about 40 or 50 years old. It’s an ideology, not science.

It has wreaked havoc on many young people who mutiliate and hate their bodies instead of treating the underlying disorder.

I urge the OP to get Catholic psychological help.
 
Look, I mean, the insistence on the difference between gender and sex, or identification of gender and sex, is a semantic argument which is not the point.

Let’s just remain aware that the OP is turning to this forum because it bares the name Catholic for solace and advice.

I think we exhausted the topic in terms of what we can offer the OP here before Brittany’s comment and the subsequent ones, unless someone has personal experience with this.

OP We are all praying for you.
 
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Kei said:
One who is in good standing with the Catholic Faith…
A bad one would be like one who says they are Catholic but disregards legitimate Catholic teaching.
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Indeed, I was asking you to define what views on this issue you would regard as dissenting with the Church - as opposed to disagreeing with the sort of personal views that some Catholics are already exhibiting on this thread
 
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On this issue?
I suppose one who held a misunderstanding concerning the unity of soul and body or held an incorrect view regarding morals (like, saying it’s subjective or that as long as something isn’t injuring another then it is fine, disregarding the injury done to oneself).
 
1ke said:
Expanding on this, actually our bodies have a sex, not a gender.
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You seem to misconstrue the relatively clear meaning of the OP re “gender is a physical thing”.

While many legitimately argue that gender identification and role is a social construct learnt early on in childhood … there is also no good reason to rule out the causative mechanism of hormones and brain structure. These are “physical things:”

When I was 10 I hated girls. Suddenly 2 or 3 years later I was fantasising about them for no reason I was aware of. I wasn’t fantasising about leggy sheep or the young fathers of my school friends.
I have always liked cars, things mechanical and taking them apart and rough games of strength and prowess. I never noticed fashion, liked to discuss hair, what colors/clothes/shoes go with this body type etc etc. Not have I ever cared much about my appearance or how beautiful I seem to others, nor to be noticed in that way. But I know many girls do almost from the time they can see.
They do not tend to rave on about how powerful a car is or how fast it can go.

In short, the roles and characteristics we expect of sexed girls or sexed boys is not wholly socially learnt. There seems to be a “physical” component as well.

I personally recognise that the two can get out of whack and possibly for “physical” reasons even when one’s morphological sexual identity is clear. I don’t know why. A similar dissonance happens with sexual orientation as SSA demonstrates. Even the Church does not rule out a “physical” cause for SSA. So I do not know why anyone would rule out a “physical” cause for Gender Dysphoria as well.

So 1ke I observe you really have no basis for your view “The idea that there is something called “gender” apart from our biological sex [is] a social construct…” if you are postulating it cannot be anything else than a false ideology.

There are still people who believe the same about SSA - that it cannot possibly have a physical causation and that it is all psychological and due to poor upbringing or role models. The Church denies such a tidy universal …and I have little doubt it will eventually say the same about Gender Dysphoria when it one day has something solid to say on the matter.

CONTINUED…
 
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