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Truth in transition? Gender identity and Catholic anthropology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

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Abstract

There is no high level Magisterial teaching directly on gender dysphoria nor on gender non‐conformity in matters of dress. Nevertheless, the relationship of gender identity to biology raises profound theological questions. Transitioning between gender roles has been construed as an attempt “to alter what is unalterable” and “to establish a false identity in place of one's true identity”. However, the anthropological reality of incongruent gender identity is complex. It has something in common with body dysmorphia, something in common with the feminist criticism of gender roles, something in common with being a eunuch or with having a divergence of sexual development and something in common with homosexuality, but in each case with important differences. This paper sets out a further analogy, between legal gender recognition and legal adoption. Intellectual humility is required to help develop more adequate concepts in this area. At the same time, practical considerations require that one comes to a provisional judgement, at least, concerning this phenomenon. The analogies from divergences of sexual development and from adoption demonstrate that it is possible in principle to affirm the incongruent gender identity without being untruthful or contradicting a sound Catholic anthropology that is adequate to this complex human reality.

Keywords

Gender identitytransgenderCatholictheologyanthropologyanalogyadoptiontransition
Type
Original Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 99 , Issue 1084 , November 2018 , pp. 756 - 774
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 World Professional Association for Transgender Health, Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People, Seventh Version (WPATH, 2011), www.wpath.org; Zucker, Kenneth J., Lawrence, Anne A., and Kreukels, Baudewijntje P. C., ‘Gender Dysphoria in Adults’, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 12 (2016), pp. 217‐247CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

2 Ashley, Benedict, Deblois, Jean, and O'Rourke, Kevin, Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: Georgetown University, 2006), pp. 110‐111Google Scholar; Gremmels, Becket, ‘Sex Reassignment Surgery and the Catholic Moral Tradition: Insight from Pope Pius XII on the Principle of Totality’, Health Care Ethics USA 24.1 (2016) 6‐10Google Scholar; Brugger, E. Christian, ‘Catholic Hospitals and Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Reply to Bayley and Gremmels’, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 16 (2016), pp. 587‐597CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McQueen, Moira, ‘Catholic Teaching on Transgender (Gender Dysphoria)’, Bioethics Matters, 14 (2016), pp. 1‐4Google Scholar. David Albert Jones, ‘Gender reassignment surgery: a Catholic bioethical analysis', Theological Studies forthcoming.

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6 WPATH, Standards of Care, p. 17.

7 Jones, ‘Gender reassignment surgery’.

8 For example, in the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

9 This document is not in the public domain but seems to have been based on Navarette, ‘Transsexualism and the Canonical Order’.

10 ‘Vatican says ‘no’ to transsexual godparents amid Spain controversy’, Catholic News Agency 2 September 2017, http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-says-no-to-transsexual-godparents-amid-spain-controversy-54280/.

11 Benedict XVI, ‘Address to the Roman Curia’, (December 21, 2012), http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2012/december/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20121221_auguri-curia.html.

12 Collated by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops as ‘“Gender Theory”/“Gender Ideology” – Select Teaching Resources’ (1 February 2017), http://www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/marriage-and-family/marriage/promotion-and-defense-of-marriage/upload/Gender-Ideology-Select-Teaching-Resources.pdf.

13 Francis, Amoris Laetitia (19 March 2016), section 56. https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20160319_amoris-laetitia.html.

14 Francis, Amoris Laetitia, section 286.

15 Francis, Amoris Laetitia, section 286.

16 Francis, Evangelii Gaudium (24 November 2013), section 69.

17 Francis, Amoris Laetitia, section 54.

18 Francis, Amoris Laetitia, section 54.

19 Deuteronomy 22:5.

20 Deuteronomy 22:9, 22:11.

21 Ambrose, ‘Concerning Virginity’ II.4.

22 Ambrose, ‘Concerning Virginity’ II.4 (31) translation from Nicene and Post‐Nicene Fathers II.10.

23 ‘possunt reduci ad virtutem veritatis’ see Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologiae IIa IIae 169 art. 1 ad 3.

24 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIa IIae 169 art. 2 ad 3.

25 Aquinas, Summa Theologiae IIa IIae 169 art. 2 ad 3.

26 If this was promulgated at the time it had little impact, but a translation dated 1997 which appeared in the traditionalist work by Rita Davidson Immodesty: Satan's Virtue, (McDonalds Corners, ON, Canada: Little Flowers Family Press, 2003), pp. 127‐134 has since been shared widely in the Catholic media and social media. See, for example, Francis Phillips, ‘In 1960 Cardinal Siri urged women not to wear trousers. I think he may have had a point’, Catholic Herald blog 5 December 2011. http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2011/12/05/in-1960-cardinal-siri-urged-women-not-to-wear-trousers-he-may-seem-like-a-blimp-now-but-i-suspect-he-had-a-point/.

27 David Albert Jones, ‘Portrait of a Catholic philosopher’, Pastoral Review 2.3 (May/June 2006), pp. 51‐55. ‘There is a story that once, entering a smart restaurant in Boston, she was told that ladies were not admitted in trousers. She proceeded to take them off.’ http://www.bioethics.org.uk/page/about_us/about_elizabeth_anscombe.

28 The Responses of Pope Nicholas I to the Questions of the Bulgars A.D. 866 (Letter 99)

Translated by W. L. North (1998) from the edition of Ernest Perels, in MGH Epistolae VI, Berlin, 1925, pp. 568‐600. Internet Medieval Source Book. https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/866nicholas-bulgar.asp.

29 It can readily be admitted that there are people whose biological sex is ambiguous or uncertain due to a physiological divergence of sexual development (also known as an “intersex” condition). In most cases of divergences of sexual development either male or female characteristics predominate but in very rare cases of ovotestes it may even be the case that the person is neither male nor female, biologically speaking. Nicanor Austriaco, ‘The Specification of Sex/Gender in Human Beings: A Thomistic Analysis’, New Blackfriars 94 (2013), pp. 701‐715. Nevertheless, gender dysphoria is not generally coincident with an overt physiological divergence of sexual development. Typically, the dysphoric person appears unambiguous physiologically but experiences a sense of gender identity incongruent with his or her natal biological sex. The analogy between gender dysphoria and divergences of sexual development is explored later in this paper.

30 Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 364; Gaudium et Spes section 14; Creed of Lateran IV (1215).

31 Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 365; Council of Vienne (1312).

32 Healy, Edwin F., Medical Ethics (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1956), p. 135.Google Scholar

33 Bedford, Elliott L. and Eberl, Jason T., ‘Is the Soul Sexed? Anthropology, Transgenderism, and Disorders of Sex Development’, Health Care Ethics USA 24.3 (Summer 2016), pp. 18–33Google Scholar; Furton, Edward J., ‘The Soul Is Not Sexed’, Ethics and Medics 41.11 (November 2016), pp. 3–4Google Scholar; Bedford, Elliott L. and Eberl, Jason T., ‘Actual Human Persons Are Sexed, Unified Beings’, Ethics and Medics 42.10 (October 2017), pp. 1‐3CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Francis, Amoris Laetitia, section 56.

35 Brugger, ‘Catholic Hospitals’, p. 590.

36 National Catholic Bioethics Center (NCBC), ‘Brief Statement on Transgenderism’, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 16 (2016) pp. 599‐603, at p. 601CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Ludwig Wittgenstein On Certainty section 79.

38 Wittgenstein, On Certainty section 92.

39 Aquinas preferred the definition adaequatio intellectus et rei (for example Summa Theologiae I, qu. 16, art. 1) and it is arguable that these formulations do not differ in content. The formulation of William of Auvergne is cited here in part on account of its historical precedence but also because of its similarity to the English idiom (‘adequate to’).

40 McHugh, Paul, ‘Transgender surgery isn't the solution’, Wall Street Journal. 12 June 2014Google Scholar.

41 Brugger, E. Christian, ‘Catholic Hospitals and Sex Reassignment Surgery: A Reply to Bayley and Gremmels’, National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, 16 (2016), pp. 587‐597CrossRefGoogle Scholar or, more sympathetically, Song, Robert, ‘Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the Ethics of Mutilation’, Studies in Christian Ethics 26 (2013), pp. 487‐503CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42 The method adopted here draws on that which Aquinas applies to divine truths (see especially Summa Theologiae I, qu. 1 a.9; q.13, a.5, see also Herbert McCabe, ‘Appendix 4: analogy’ in Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologiae: volume 3 ‐ knowing and naming God, (1a. 12‐13). (London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1964), pp. 106–7)Google Scholar.

43 de Beauvoir, Simone, The Second Sex (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), p. 301Google Scholar.

44 Indeed, this difference is such that there is a significant strand of radical feminist thought that considers transition between genders to contradict the fundamental insight of Simone de Beauvoir. Raymond, Janice in The Transsexual Empire: The Making of the She‐Male (New York: Teachers College Press, 1979)Google Scholar argued that the transition for male to female social and legal gender status presupposes and thus reinforces received conceptions of gender and of gender roles. It is outside the scope of this paper to engage with these subtle and tradition‐specific arguments, but it is important to highlight the fact that there are different theories of gender within modern culture and the concept of incongruent gender identity is in tension with the gender theory developed by prominent twentieth‐century feminists.

45 Öçal, Gönül, ‘Current concepts in disorders of sexual development’, Journal of Clinical Research in Pediatric Endocrinology, 3.3 (2011), pp. 105–114CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; see also Zucker, Kenneth J., Lawrence, Anne A., and Kreukels, Baudewijntje P. C., ‘Gender Dysphoria in Adults’, Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 12 (2016), pp. 217‐247CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.

46 On the ethics of surgery see Jones, ‘Gender reassignment surgery’.

47 Evident, for example, in the title of the volume edited by McWhinnie, Alexina Who am I?: Experiences of Donor Conception (Lemington Spa: Idreos Education Trust, 2006)Google Scholar.

48 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child Article 7.1.

49 Adoption, and the reality of the new identity it creates, also provides an analogy for the life of grace which is a true participation in the life of the Holy Trinity (for example in Galatians 4:4‐5; Romans 8:14‐17; John 1:12‐13).

50 Moraczewski, Albert S., ‘“Sex Change” Operations’, Ethics & Medics 2 (1977), pp. 4‐5 at 5Google Scholar.

51 Ashley, Deblois, and O'Rourke, Health Care Ethics, pp. 112‐113. Though it should be noted that, on the basis of their reading of the clinical evidence, Ashley, Deblois and O'Rourke argue against reassignment surgery for people with gender dysphoria.

52 Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2333. Paul, Pope John II, Man and Woman He Created Them: A Theology of the Body, trans. Waldstein, Michael (Boston: Pauline Books & Media, 2006) No. 9:3Google Scholar.

53 Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraphs 2333, 2393; Francis Laudato Si’ (24 March 2015), section 155.

54 NCBC, ‘Brief Statement’ p. 601.

55 Brugger, ‘Catholic Hospitals’, p. 590.

56 Francis, ‘In‐flight press conference of His Holiness Pope Francis from Azerbaijan to Rome’ 2 October 2016, https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/speeches/2016/october/documents/papa-francesco_20161002_georgia-azerbaijan-conferenza-stampa.html.

57 Ibid.

58 This conclusion relates to the compatibility in principle of gender transition with Catholic faith and morals. It does not imply that transition would be appropriate in a particular case still less does it imply endorsement of any or every possible medical or surgical intervention. Nevertheless, the point of principle is significant in its own right and opens up the further questions of whether transition might be appropriate in this or that particular case and whether this or that cosmetic, hormonal or surgical procedure might then be justified in these circumstances.