Transgender In Love

[John_of_Woking]

(This is a question that’s been eating me alive to the point that I’ve just crawled out of bed at 2 AM to register on my favorite forum in the world and ask it. Do forgive if I am less than eloquent!)

I am a faithful Catholic and have been for my entire life. I have never strayed from its teachings and I vigorously defend its doctrines, even–and especially–those concerning the Church’s stance on homosexuality. If I were to classify myself, I would say that I am very traditional. However, I also suffer from Gender Identity Disorder. (To clarify, I have not begun hormones or undergone surgery, but I do crossdress, which, as I have gathered from scouring other threads, is not a sin, and thank goodness, because it is a small and much needed respite from my turmoil.)

Of course, knowing that I will never truly be the sex I wasn’t born as, I contentedly resigned myself to a chaste and single life since a very young age, incapable of either marriage or of comfortably joining a holy order. I have never fornicated and I am stubborn enough to think that I never will–I hope I never will, anyway, by grace.

However, I have since found someone that I have fallen irrevocably in love with. They are the same sex as my birth sex. They know that I have GID, and, while straight, they love me anyway. I love them, too, and our attraction is mutual, chaste and not lustful in the slightest. Of course, knowing how things go, we have discussed the issue of the marital act, and on account of my religion (they are not Catholic) and my condition we have come to the understanding that it can never happen between us. Naturally, I am acutely aware that a marriage will never be recognized by the Church.

Despite these discouragements, we want to stay together as a chaste couple. I think that we have the willpower and the strength to do it, and by God’s grace I am sure that we can. It is a rare and powerful love that I do not think is possible for many people, to the point that we would both give up the sacred act. It is a great sacrifice on their part, especially, made more potent on account of the fact that they are the sort of person that could have anyone they desired, really–certainly someone who was not like me, someone who was whole enough to be a proper other half.

I suppose that this must seem a bit convoluted, but my primary question is this: would we be committing a sin anyway for staying together in this way, or does sin only come into play when sexual intimacy does?

My heart goes out to you. I know of someone very close to me who nearly had the operation but through the grace of God didn’t. I know it is a massive cross. I would strongly counsel against this relationship. Re: cross dressing I do not believe this to be good also

 

[ethereality]

Let me begin by saying I regret the tone of this post, but find myself unable to say it in a way that appears more charitable. Please note that I intend for this to be read as friendly suggestions, not as criticism or anti-sympathetic.

I encourage the OP to begin reading more books on Christian sexuality; he’s speaking like someone who doesn’t quite understand marriage, sexual relations, or his own sexuality. For example, it’s not that “the Church would never recognize such a marriage”, it’s that such a marriage is not possible. We are not talking about a legal contract with a secular government, whereby the word ‘marriage’ can be applied to anything the government chooses (at the moment people are pushing for the government to define it as “between two people”, and the media has encouraged and successfully gotten people to use this implicit definition by introducing the phrase “gay marriage”). We’re talking about what marriage actually is, and it has only one definition. If it doesn’t meet that definition, then it’s not a marriage. Similarly, a triangular circle is not possible, because a triangle must have three sides, by definition.

Indulging in transvestism is also problematic insofar as it undermines the identity with one’s own sex and feeds the experience of gender dysphoria.

I encourage you to be friends with this person, but living together would be a near occasion of sin if it causes you to regard this person as the equivalent of a spouse.

(P.S. I use standard English where ‘he’ is used for a person of unspecified sex. I am not assuming that the OP is male.)

 

[Rau]

Despite these discouragements, we want to stay together as a chaste couple. I think that we have the willpower and the strength to do it, and by God’s grace I am sure that we can. It is a rare and powerful love that I do not think is possible for many people, to the point that we would both give up the sacred act. It is a great sacrifice on their part, especially, made more potent on account of the fact that they are the sort of person that could have anyone they desired, really–certainly someone who was not like me, someone who was whole enough to be a proper other half.

I suppose that this must seem a bit convoluted, but my primary question is this: would we be committing a sin anyway for staying together in this way, or does sin only come into play when sexual intimacy does?

I understand your love for the other person to be of a romantic nature, by which term I mean the same kind of love that may typically develop between a heterosexual couple, and which by its nature typically evolves to a desire for physical intimacy and sexual ‘encounters’. I think you recognise the likelihood of temptation in your reference to “willpower and strength” (to stay together as a chaste couple). [Note: you may *think you know that you can manage the temptation, but you *cannot *know how the other will cope.]

If your love is “romantic”, I cannot conceive of how the relationship you contemplate would not be a near occasion of sin - which may itself be sinful.

I do wish you well.

 

[Listener]

I hate to be ignorant, but I still don’t know how someone could know they are transgender. What would make a person think they were a woman in a man 's body when they can’t possibly know what a woman feels like in a woman’s body?

To me, you are whatever gender your body says you are, and if you like feminine things, so what? Couldn’t a person like this find a woman who considered herself as having some masculine tastes?

I’m not trying to be flippant about this, I just really don’t understand. I know a woman who has changed herself into a man. This is a Facebook friend. I notice this person always posts about cooking, sewing, and gardening. I just don’t get it.