How to accompany transgender people in the catholic church

Text dthe Jamez Terry* and Jamez Terry ** on Health Progress (Catholic Health Association of the United States, United States), autumn 2023. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project.

In the last ten years the question of the genre has received growing attention. Rarely passes a day without the media do not report news on the clinical, legal and ethical aspects linked to the experience of transgender people.

All these elements intertwine - or sometimes they collide - in the political blender, where on the one hand trans people are raised to symbol of individual civil rights, while on the other they are pointed out as an example of moral and spiritual decline.

Yet, despite all this public visibility, the spiritual dimension and the inner needs of transgender people have received very little attention.

Instead, it is important to examine their experiences closely, not only to offer better care in our Catholic hospitals and clinics, but also because their experience can help us discover new spiritual dynamics in our own lives.

The most essential question

The experience of transgender people concerns all of us because it is rooted in a fundamental question about human existence.

Sister Luisa Derouen, OP, Dominican and spiritual director who for almost twenty -five years has accompanied hundreds of transgender people, says that the first step on our path of understanding consists in asking us: "Who am I?".

Each of us grows up to mature awareness of their own existence and to recognize who is in relation to God and others. For transgender people, the search for the truth of their existence is more difficult.

They do not choose to be transgender, and therefore they cannot choose to "not be". There is a long list of authoritative medical bodies that confirm the reality of transgender people.

But there is also another narrative, carried out by some medical, political and religious environments of different confessions. According to this vision, transgender people wouldn't really exist, but only in their mind.

"It is impossible - says Sister Derouen - showing people and at the same time denying their existence. It does not matter how beautiful they may seem the words: being pathologized and put on the margins leads to stigma, shame, silence, secrecy and, tragically, to suicide".

Sister Derouen tells of having witnessed hundreds of episodes of this marginalization, closely and with pain. And he adds: "As long as transgender people try to suppress who they are and try to become what others say they must be, they find themselves suffering from depression, isolation, anger, medical problems, abuse of substances, broken relationships and much more. But when they choose to live starting from the truth and integrity of their being, much of this pain disappears, and peace, joy, compassion, inner freedom, receive and donate authentic love ".

And he concludes: "We humans are a complex and mysterious creation of body and spirit desired by God, and no one is more in tune with the mystery of this reality of transgender people. Far from being delusional or by wanting to betray the humanity that God has given them, they only want to remain faithful to what God has made of them".

"There is no me without the transition"

There is no single way to define or describe the transition. For each person it is a process of recognition and affirmation of the truth of one's being.

Some describe it as a conversion of life, a transformation into God, or a growth in integrity and freedom: the ways to tell it are many. What matters is to recognize that what transgender people live is something sacred and good, not a sin or a deception.

Maureen Cauffey, a trans woman who dedicates time to meditation every morning and participates every day in Mass, summarizes this experience as follows: "There is no life in me without Christ in the center, but there is no me without the transition".

After all, this also concerns each of us. In the path of awareness and self -discovery, we are all called to leave what is false in us and does not come from God, and to keep what our deepest truth reveals to us, where God lives in us.

It is not easy, and it requires a whole life, but for transgender people this path is often even more complex.

Sister Derouen, observing and accompanying these paths, describes three general phases.

The first is that of the "false integration". It is the tormented struggle of those who try in every way not to be trans, because everyone around repeat that it is not and that being trans is wrong.

Some people, like Dawn Wright, have lived for years in this anguish, fighting their inner reality: "I thought that if I had passed it would be a deadly sin and I would go to hell. But I can no longer live like this, and if I do not transit I would commit suicide, and that would also be a fatal sin. So, in any case, I would have ended up in hell ».

The second phase is that of "disintegration", when you finally recognize that you can no longer continue to live a lie, pretending to be someone else.

It is a moment of truth, but also of great losses: those who decide to live according to the genre who feels how they really know of risking relationships, family, friendships, work, community. Yet, however painful, this step also brings relief, so that you stop fighting yourself.

The pianist Sara Buchner tells his experience as follows: «In the two and a half years tumultuous years after my decision to pass, friends abandoned me, the concerts have been deleted and I lost their jobs as a teacher. But inside me there was a total calm, because the inner path was an integral part of myself, and it was a path made not by myself, but with God ».

The third phase is that of "reintegration". Over the years, those who pass slowly come to finally feel at home, in themselves, in the world and in God. The difficulties do not Disappear - as for all human beings - but are now faced with integrity.

It affects how much these three stages reflect a more universal paradigm than existence. It could be described as "thesis-antithesis", or, in theological terms, as "purgative-enlightenment-unitative", or as the "exit from the dark night of the soul" described by San Giovanni della Croce: a painful, but still Benedetto. After all, we all cross similar passages on our path of growth in the image of God.

"Walking next to transgender and non -binary people - says Sister Derouen -, accompanying them from the false self to true self, is the call that God has entrusted me.

They deeply transformed my life into God, and I learned a lot from them. They made me a better woman and gave me the courage to live my own life with more integrity ».

* Fr. Charles E. Bouchard, OP recently concluded his assignment as Senior Director for theology and sponsorship at the Catholic Health Association of St. Louis. Currently Senior Fellow and consultant at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis.

** Jamez Terry is chaplain at the provider Alaska Children's Hospital in Anchorage ..

Original text: Six Practical Suggestions for Spiritual Care of Transgender Persons