Once again on Transsexuality, Transgenderism, and Consecrated Life

[[Sister Laurel, did you see this opinion piece statement? "Brother Christian Matson lives as a hermit and a Benedictine oblate in Kentucky, both paths approved by Bishop John Stowe of the Diocese of Lexington. Because the church permits both male and female hermits, the situation does not breach the gendered rules that govern monasticism in the Catholic Church."]]

No, I had not seen it. Thanks for sending it my way. While it is true that c 603 is used by both male and female hermits in the Church, this is not the point at which gender and sex become critical in terms of consecrated life (including c 603 consecrated life). Instead, it is in terms of the vow of chastity in celibacy that sex becomes critical and gender roles less so. I have written about this a couple of times now so please check Ecclesial Vocations and Sexuality, Are Vows Possible? and Transsexuals and Admission to Public Vows. I would start with the last one. To summarize, however, the most basic answer is that public ecclesial vocations commit the person vowed to chastity in celibacy to grow towards human fullness in their natural manliness or womanliness. At the very least the call to make such a vow and embrace such a state of life presupposes the acceptance of this foundational sexuality; perhaps this will require a lot of exploration of what this means (and does not necessarily mean) in terms of gender roles --- even when this necessitates significant struggle --- but admission to a vow of chastity (or consecrated celibacy) still implies an acceptance of one's foundational (biological) sex.

While there is some science indicating possible cerebral (temporal lobe) involvement and potential chromosomal defects, my sense from reading moral theologians like Gerald Coleman is the evidence is inconclusive. Even if it were conclusive, we would then be speaking about some transsexualism as involving or representing an organic disorder that, at this point, is without effective treatment(s) for the cause(s) of the disorder itself. At the same time, moral theologians recognize that "there is significant science indicating increasing clinical evidence that the majority of transsexuals suffer from some type of pathology." Gerald Coleman, PSS, writes, " While a few transsexuals may have a biological substrate that organizes their transsexualism, the disorder is primarily psychological. . .[and] deserves to be treated with psychological, not surgical methods."

When we add to these kinds of observations and conclusions the current growing alarm over the exponentially burgeoning incidence of transsexuality in the young (children and adolescents) and the increasing number of those who now want to "detransition" because they now recognize there was much more going on socially and psychologically (as it usually is during adolescence!) as they were funneled into surgical and medical interventions for supposed transsexuality by peers, schools, self-help groups and a variety of clinics and medical professionals, for a one-size fits all diagnosis and often-catastrophic treatment interventions.

The Church, particularly through its moral theologians and medical practitioners, will continue to attend to the science associated with transsexuality and try to distinguish between that and what is the result of a powerful or influential ideological movement. Some will surely disagree with all of this, and, despite the clear complexity of the entire contemporary situation, charge that the church is not keeping up with the science, for instance. However, in light of this picture of things, my sense is the church's stance on transsexuality and the consecrated state of life both will and should continue without change for the present. The bottom line for the church remains that transgendered persons do not and cannot change their foundational sex. For purposes of the passage cited above, the author has, in my opinion, simply missed the point. This is about much more than transgressing (or not transgressing) gender rules. The more central issue at stake in the church's understanding of ecclesial vocations to the consecrated state and the possibility of professing and consecrating transgendered persons remains the call to affirm one's foundational sexuality and achieve in celibate chastity the fullness of authentically loving manliness or womanliness.