Transgender/cis marriage

[quepena]

Apologies in advance for the length and wordiness of this post. I’m new to this site, I’ve only browsed through it a few times before, but to be honest I didn’t want to approach a priest face to face about this issue out of embarrassment, so here I am!

I’m a cisgender man (born naturally male), and my partner of just over a year is transgender (assigned female at birth but identifies as male). Both of us were baptised and confirmed Catholics as children, he under his previous female name. I go to Mass on a regular basis although I’m not a big believer in the rules, but he is lapsed.

Is there any possibility that we could be married in the Catholic Church? Personally it isn’t a big deal for me as I’m mostly attracted to men, and the only previous relationship I was in was with a cis man who I accepted I would never be sacramentally or validly married to according to the Church. I had never even thought about the possibility of ever being married in the Church prior to this week, when I spoke to a friend who mentioned in passing that it might be technically possible.

We aren’t planning on getting married soon but both of us would love to in the long term - we both are from quite traditional families so if we could have a Church wedding they would be delighted. We are fairly introverted and keep our relationship to ourselves, so if it was possible for us to be married in the Church, we would want it to be private for close friends and family only and not have a big circus.

If it helps, he has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria and has legally changed his name but hasn’t yet changed his gender marker. ID states his male name but with F marker so he is still legally ‘female’, although this will change at some point in the future. He has been taking testosterone since long before we met and has recently had cosmetic chest surgery to help with dysphoria, but still has a female reproductive system so technically if he was to temporarily stop taking testosterone and didn’t use any contraception it is very likely that he could become pregnant naturally.

 

[MNathaniel]

It’s an interesting question.

I don’t have the expertise to answer it so I think I’ll avoid potentially clouding the waters by trying to claim anything one way or another… but I think I can see what your friend meant about this being (potentially) technically possible.

Because (with respect to your loved one and yourself who it sounds like may sees things differently) in the eyes of the Church, this would be a union of one man and one woman.

Oh, one relevant thought occurs to me:

If your loved one experiences gender dysphoria to the point of already taking hormones, etc… I imagine the dysphoria is pretty intensely felt, and this person feels strongly… what’s a good word… repelled? What word would they use? by feminine characteristics of their body?

The reason I ask this is because it occurs to me that someone so repelled by experiencing the femininity of their body, might anticipate the experience of pregnancy with such dread that they’re not actually ‘open’ to children conceived through the sexual act. Because being pregnant is an intrinsically feminine experience, if you see what I mean. And it lasts nine months. I’ve heard folks who discuss their experience of gender dysphoria, talk about how horrifying they find the thought of pregnancy.

And openness to children is one of the criteria for a valid catholic marriage.

I’m not saying that closes the question, not remotely. But maybe it sort of indicates one of the directions to look for answers in? Whether a diagnosed medical condition like gender dysphoria impacts someone’s openness to children on a level relevant to the validity of marriage, or whether it’s theologically possible to consider oneself, i.e., conditionally open to children if a pre-existing medical condition is eventually relieved?

In the meantime, I hope that both you and your loved one have good support systems around you, know that you’re loved, and are in overall good health.

And if you know a local priest you trust, I might suggest reaching out to him for some more personalized pastoral counsel.

 

[Anicette]

It cannot be possible

 

[1ke]

You need to speak with a priest.

This is not something you are going to get sound advice about over the internet from the peanut gallery.

You have serious questions on sacramental theology and bioethics, along with the fact neither of you is practicing and yet you want to approach the church for marriage (to please your families?). This requires personal counseling from a priest, who is really the only person who can make a determination about freedom and suitability for marriage.

This seems a very far out there post. Sometimes people troll here, sometimes they have genuinely far out there questions. This really isn’t going to be served well on an Internet forum if it’s a genuine question.

 

[MNathaniel]

I’m out of ‘likes’ for today but despite having also commented first myself, I do want to second everything @1ke just said here.

 

[quepena]

Thank you all for the answers anyway, I appreciate it! To be honest, I asked out of curiosity more than urgency, so because marriage isn’t a massive priority for either of us at the moment, I’m unlikely to go to a priest unless it becomes a real likelihood.

In addition, there’s a decent chance that if we were to marry it would be purely civil because neither of us is particularly hung up about canon law or what is and isn’t a sacrament (plus we’d be able to be civilly married as two husbands which would be less problematic for my partner than having to be a ‘bride’ for Church purposes). I was just asking because there’s an off-chance that Church marriage might be something we’d think about.