Transgender Catholics — as well as a priest who welcomes them to his parish — expressed disappointment Monday with a new Vatican document rejecting the fundamental concept of changing one’s biological sex.
In essence, it was a restatement of longstanding Catholic teaching, but the dismay was heightened because recent moves by Pope Francis had encouraged some trans Catholics to hope the church might become more accepting.
The pope has welcomed a community of transgender women to his weekly general audiences. And last year, the Vatican said it’s permissible, under certain circumstances, for trans people to be baptized as Catholics and serve as godparents.
“A document like this is very hurtful to the larger LGBTQ+ community but especially to the trans community,” said Maxwell Kuzma, 32, a lifelong Catholic transgender man working as a film editor and writer in rural Ohio.
“I never thought the leopards would eat my face!”
Ah yeah, the trans community. Totally didn’t already know they were generally not accepted by Abrahamic religions. Weren’t just given a tiny glimmer of hope to desperately hang on to that they might be accepted. Also are Catholic because Catholicism hurts the right people.
Religion is a helluva drug.
…don’t you think this is a little dismissive? Maybe I’m wrong but most people are catholic because they were raised that way.
It sure would suck if something I had no control over excluded me from my own culture/religion/family. In fact, if I found myself in that situation, the right thing to do would be to make changes, if I could, for other people like me and those people’s families.
By the way, I do think religion as an institution sucks. But, I don’t think these people are supporting face-eating leopards. These people live in the jungle already, their choice is to leave or fight leopards.
“I was raised that way” is an excuse that holds no water. Trans people were raised to believe that they were their sex assigned at birth and they came to the conclusion that that didnt fit them. They can re-evaluate other beliefs just the same.
They were born into a family who supports face eating leopards. That sucks! But now as an adult they’ve continued to support the face eating leopards. Sure being indoctrinated into a religion is a tough thing to break out of… but when you are being attacked by the very people who indoctrinated you it should rapidly become obvious they don’t have your best interest at heart.