Dialogue on Sexuality and Gender

Doris, a lesbian Agnostic, is headed to the local Pride Parade.  As she is on her way, she spots Natasha and invites her to go as well.  She suspects she knows how Natasha, a Catholic, will respond, but she wants to see what she will say.

Doris:  Hey Natasha!

Natasha:  Oh, hey, Doris!  How are you?

Doris:  Fine, thanks.  I was just headed over to the Pride Parade.  Would you like to come?

Natasha:  I appreciate the invitation, but, to be honest, I'm not comfortable going to the parade.

Doris:  Why not?

Natasha:  Well, it's just that I'm concerned that part of the purpose of the parade is to celebrate certain things that go against my own beliefs, and so I don't feel it would be appropriate for me to go.

Doris:  You do realize, don't you, that the point of the parade is to celebrate LGBTQ+ people, to show support, love, and respect?  Is that against your beliefs?

Natasha:  No, certainly not.  If that was all it was, I would go in an instant.  My concern is that it appears to me that the parade is not only celebrating LGBTQ+ people, but also celebrating certain expressions of sexual practice that are contrary to my beliefs.  That's what keeps me from going.

Doris:  You say you respect and support LGBTQ+ people, but you really don't.  You refuse to accept us for who we are.  You tell us there is something wrong with us, something inferior about us, because we don't fit into your outdated stereotypes about what sexuality and sexual expression should be like.  You try to prevent us from having equal rights by advocating discrimination against us in marriage law and public accommodations.  You try to justify your LGBTQ+-phobia by appealing to your Scriptures, but you ignore those same Scriptures in other areas.  (For example, the Bible says that homosexuality is wrong, but it also says eating crustaceans is wrong, and yet you don't care about that.)  How can you claim to respect us when you treat us with such hatred and bigotry and injustice?

Natasha:  Wow, you've put forward a lot of charges there!  Let me try to respond to them one at a time.  First of all, you say that because we Catholics believe that sexual activity outside of marriage between one man and one woman is wrong, we therefore hate those who practice such activity, that we disrespect such people and think them inferior.  I am reminded of a quote from secularist author Austin Dacey:  "We do not respect people by accepting whatever they think and do, but by holding them to the same intellectual, moral, and legal standards we apply to ourselves."  There is a crucial distinction between respecting a person and accepting whatever they may choose to do as ethical.  We Catholics do not hate LGBTQ+ people; we simply believe that some of the philosophical ideas and ethical practices advocated by many in that community are wrong.

Doris:  But our sexual expressions and activities express who we really are.  Just as being a religious Jew involves praying at a synagogue, so being a lesbian involves being inclined to seek sex with females.  To attack the practices is to attack the persons.  I don't just choose, on some superficial level, to be attracted to and seek sexual union with females.  My inclinations in this area are a deep part of who I am.  When you say my actions in this area are wrong, you are saying there is something wrong with me, which is to hate and disrespect me.

Natasha:  Well, if you want to look at it that way, being Catholic is a deep and central part of who I am, and being Catholic involves accepting Catholic teaching, and Catholic teaching tells me that sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is wrong.  But you say I am wrong to believe this.  So, by your standards, aren't you doing the very same thing to me that you claim I am doing to you?  Aren't you hating and disrespecting me by saying that something that is central to my personal identity is wrong?

Doris:  But you choose to be Catholic.  I don't choose to be a lesbian!

Natasha:  Do I choose to be a Catholic?  I'm a Catholic because I'm convinced Catholicism is true.  I can't just turn that on and off at will, any more than you can turn your sexual attractions on and off at will.  Sure, I choose to act on what I think the evidence says and to accept Catholicism.  Just as you choose to act on your sexual inclinations in your sexual practice.  But isn't the deeper point here that both of us consider these elements of our lives deep and central aspects of our personal identity?  Why should your "personal identity" be protected from all criticism while mine can be dismissed without the slightest consideration?

Doris:  But I'm not saying there is something wrong with you, like you're saying about me.  I'm only criticizing certain aspects of what you believe and how you act based on that.

Natasha:  And I am simply criticizing certain aspects of what you believe (sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is ethically OK) and how you act based on that (engaging in such sexual activity).

Doris:  But it's none of your business how I live my life!

Natasha:  It's my business to have an opinion on what other people think and do, just as you obviously have your own opinions about what Catholics think and do.  But the main point is this:  I can respect you as a person without agreeing with everything you think and do.  These are not incompatible things.  You are a human being made in the image of God, and so you have value that deserves respect.  And I respect you.

Doris:  But there's the problem right there!  You don't really respect me.  You respect some idea of me you have in your own imagination.  I don't believe that I am made in the image of God.  So you're just projecting your Catholic ideas on me and saying you respect me while you really just respect those ideas.

Natasha:  Well, do you respect me?

Doris:  Yes, as a person.

Natasha:  Why?

Doris:  Because you're a fellow human being.

Natasha:  Why does that make me worth respecting?

Doris:  Not because of some God whose image you are made in, certainly!  No, it's simply because we fellow human beings ought to stick to each other in this harsh and apparently meaningless universe.

Natasha:  So you don't respect me as a person made in the image of God.  Well then, I could say that you really don't respect me, because what I think I really am is a person made in the image of God.  What you really respect is not me but your own ideas about me, ideas that are contrary to my Catholics beliefs about myself.  So if the fact that I ground the basis of my respect for you in my own worldview beliefs means I don't really respect you, how can you say you really respect me when your basis for respecting me is just as grounded in your own worldview beliefs?

Doris:  OK, but what about how you Catholics seek to impose your beliefs upon me in the law?  You seek to prevent me from marrying whom I wish.  You seek to prevent the law from prohibiting public discrimination against me (for example, by supporting that cake baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex wedding).  How is that respectful towards me?  How is that not hate and bigotry?

Natasha:  First of all, while the Catholic Church is quite clear regarding the unethical nature of sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage, things get less clear when we start talking about complex issues of public law.  The Catholic Church is clear that human societies, just like human individuals, should respect and follow the truth (which we believe to be found in its fullness in the Catholic faith) in all they do.  Our laws should reflect truth.  But how that plays out in terms of how public law should balance various competing concerns like liberty of conscience vs. prevention of discrimination, etc., is a much trickier business.  I'm hesitant to speak for the Catholic Church as a whole when it comes to specific legal cases.

But, having said that, I personally think that in the case of that cake baker, the law should allow him to refuse to make the cake.

Doris:  But that's public discrimination!

Natasha:  Sure it is, in a sense.  But if the law forces bakers to bake cakes they cannot in good conscience bake, then that is discrimination against beliefs by the law itself.  So there's going to be discrimination somewhere.  The question is where.

Doris:  But it's hateful to support public discrimination.

Natasha:  Is it hateful to support discrimination against religious beliefs in the law?

Doris:  But the law wasn't forcing him to violate his religious beliefs.  It was merely making him avoid illegal discrimination.

Natasha:  But he couldn't avoid what you call "illegal discrimination" without violating his religious beliefs.

Doris:  But the law can't allow everything!  We have to put our foot down when it comes to beliefs and practices that harm others.  It's not hateful or bigoted to do that!

Natasha:  I agree.  I'm glad we agree that not all discrimination is hateful or bigoted.  When discrimination is necessary and warranted to protect things we ought to protect, then it can be a just thing to do.  We simply disagree about what would be the most just thing to do in this case.  I think that allowing cake bakers in such cases to refrain from baking cakes would cause less harm than forcing them to bake the cakes.

Doris:  But what about Catholic support for laws against gay marriage?

Natasha:  Well, according to the Catholic worldview, there is no such thing as gay marriage, for marriage was designed by God to be only between a man and a woman.  That is essential to its nature.  So the Catholic Church could never agree that the government should grant the title of marriage to a same-sex union.

Doris:  But who are you to determine for everyone what the true definition of marriage is?!

Natasha:  Look, if the law prohibits same-sex marriage, it will embrace some people's ideas about marriage and reject other people's ideas.  But notice that this is also true if the law allows same-sex marriage.  In either case, the law favors someone's definition of marriage over someone else's.

Doris:  But there is a big difference.  You are trying to stop some people from doing what they want, while we are simply trying to get the law to allow everyone to do what they want.

Natasha:  While in a sense I don't disagree with you there, I think that is a somewhat misleading and simplistic way of looking at it.  Both the proponents and the opponents of same-sex marriage are trying to shape the law to fit their ideas about what is true and just.  Both sides are ultimately trying to fashion society according to what they think it should be like.  And both sides are doing this in spite of the fact that there are other people in the society who don't want it to be the way they want it to be.  People are imposed upon by more than just laws that stop them from doing something specific.  People care about broader conditions of justice or injustice in society.  If society passes a law that is unjust, this is something that I consider harmful and worth changing even if it doesn't directly affect me--because I care about people and things beyond myself.    So do you.  My main point is this:  No matter what the law does with regard to same-sex marriage, or with regard to innumerable other issues, it will always be moving towards someone's ideals about what society should be like and moving away from the ideals of someone else.  There is no such thing as worldview-neutrality when it comes to civil law.

Doris:  What if the government simply got out of the marriage business altogether, and called the unions they used to call "marriage" by a different name?  Or what if they continued to call them marriages but they made it clear that they are using the word "marriage" to refer to something fundamentally different from what various religious groups might mean by "marriage" and that the institutions should be considered to be distinct?

Natasha:  Well, that would probably ease the concerns a bit, although I don't know if it would be the most helpful way forward overall, all things considered.  It's something to think about, at least.

Doris:  I want to shift gears a little bit here.  I see what you are saying about distinguishing between respect for persons and agreement regarding the truth or ethicality of ideas and actions.  But it seems to me obvious that your beliefs about sexuality are outdated.  They've been proven false by science.  Shouldn't you therefore stop judging people by them and seeking to impose them on people?  It is unethical to impose outdated, unscientific ideas on people.  It is harmful.

Natasha:  How do you think Catholic beliefs about sexuality have been proven false by science?

Doris:  Well, science, and our human experience in general, have shown that human nature is more complex than the old religious views have allowed.  We know now that homosexuality is not some kind of disorder.  It's part of the natural diversity of the human race. (We even see it in animals!)  Some people are oriented sexually more towards those of the same sex, some people are oriented towards those of the opposite sex, some people are oriented towards both, some towards neither, and in general there's a whole spectrum of forms in which human sexuality comes.  Homosexuality is not some kind of psychological disorder that can be cured.  It's an integral part of who some people are.  That's why respecting such people involves respecting their homosexuality.  You can't separate the two.

Natasha:  We could debate whether or not homosexuality could or should be classified as some kind of physiological or psychological "disorder."  But it's not important, because the Catholic position is not dependent on this issue.  There are aspects of human life that are completely "natural," in the sense that they are a normal part of human nature as it currently exists, and yet are still "disordered" in a deeper, metaphysical sense.  Take death, for example.  What could be more natural than death?  Obviously, it is not a disorder when people die.  It is the normal, universal experience of all (or almost all, if you take a Catholic point of view) human beings.  But yet at a deeper metaphysical level, one that takes into account not only the empirical sciences but the fundamental divine purpose and design of human beings, death is a terrible disorder.  Humans were not created originally to die.  Death entered the human race as a result of the Fall.  It is now a "natural" thing, but, at the deepest level, it is fundamentally unnatural.  The Fall not only brought death, but it led to a widespread disordering of human nature.  We are now subject to all kinds of disadvantages and corruptions we would not have been subject to before the Fall.  Catholic theology talks about "concupiscence"--the disordered desires of fallen human beings.  These are the desires that lead us into sin.  (That is, these are desires that, instead of being "ordered to" or inclining towards what is good, are "ordered to" or incline us to what is bad.  That is why they are called "dis-ordered.")  These desires are, on the biological level, quite normal, but they are anything but normal when we are talking about the original design and purpose of human beings.  Now please note that concupiscence in itself is not personal sin.  One is not responsible for one's disordered desires.  One can only be morally responsible for what is under the control of one's will.  It is choosing to act on a disordered desire and to therefore do something ethically wrong that involves personal sin and guilt.  So having homosexual inclinations is not a personal sin.  But acting on those inclinations and engaging in sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage is a sin, at least objectively speaking.  (To be balanced, though, we should note that all characteristics persons have in the world, even in a fallen world, even those characteristics that carry with them the potential disadvantage of inclining people towards sin, should not be seen as all-negative.  All of these characteristics, including having homosexual inclinations, if submitted to the will of God, can express the uniquely valuable personalities of individual persons and can serve to benefit oneself, fellow human beings, and to glorify God.)

So I do not see any basis for your claim that the Catholic view of sexuality is contrary to anything we know from the natural sciences.  The natural sciences can determine lots of things about human sexuality, but it is not within the domain of the natural, empirical sciences to determine more fundamental metaphysical and philosophical truths about human nature and the divine design of that nature, or to determine which actions are ethical and which are not.  These are philosophical questions that transcend the natural sciences and can only be answered within the domains of philosophy and theology.

Doris:  But if homosexuality--and other forms of non-traditional sexual inclinations--are built into human nature, at least as it currently exists (in what you call a "fallen" state), then isn't it unethical for the Catholic Church to condemn such sexual activity?  The Church is asking for the impossible!  It's asking for people to suppress or even to throw away who they really are.  It is unjust to ask this of anybody.  And it's harmful.  The LGBTQ+ community tends to have a high rate of suicide, precisely, at least in part, because of these kinds of inhuman demands.  You can't ask people to reject their real selves.

Natasha:  I understand what you're saying here, and my first response is compassion.  We should certainly not underestimate how hard it is to live according to some of the Church's teachings.  And we should never underestimate the pain of those who do experience real disrespect, hatred, and bullying for being who they are.  We should help and love and support such people, and all people.  We do such a terrible job of understanding, loving, and respecting those who are different from us!  No doubt a substantial portion of the backlash the Church is experiencing from the LGBTQ+ community is justly deserved, as Catholics, and most others as well, have failed to live up to the love and respect required by the humanity of those who have struggled with things that have put them at odds with the larger society.

However, I cannot agree with you that Church teaching is unjust in this area.  In a sense, our entire human civilization is built upon the foundation of denial.  We are all fallen creatures.  Our desires are continually driving us to do things we know in our reason we ought not to do.  That's one reason life is so hard.  We must be constantly restraining ourselves from doing what we want, making ourselves do what we don't want to do, and in general going against and disciplining our human inclinations.  Different people struggle more with different things, whether because of their peculiar circumstances, their peculiar personality and psychological make-up, their particular physiology, or whatever.  It is notoriously difficult to get the mastery over our impulses and desires and to bring them into conformity with right reason.  That is precisely what ethics is all about.

Ethics asks hard things of all of us.  Sometimes it asks particularly hard things of some.  It calls some to be martyrs.  What could be more unnatural than allowing oneself to be killed, when simply saying a few words or performing a few external actions (denying the faith, burning some incense to the emperor) could preserve one's life?  I just watched A Man for All Seasons the other day, a movie about the life of Thomas More, who allowed himself to be beheaded simply because he would not agree to King Henry VIII being head of the Church of England and to his marriage to Anne Boleyn.  So many people tried so hard to get him to capitulate.  "All you have to do is just sign this piece of paper, no big deal."  But he allowed his head to get chopped off rather than do it.  I can't imagine what that was like, nor, I'm pretty sure, could anyone else who has not been in that situation.

Sometimes people have been called to endure torture, or long, cruel imprisonments, or other horrors, in order to preserve their ethical integrity.  Alcoholics have to go through a hard and painful process to avoid capitulating to their addiction to drink.  Some people are naturally belligerent, or get angry easily, or lack compassion, and they have to work hard to correct for these biases that would lead them into unjust actions.  Some married people find themselves attracted to another person, and they have to work hard to suppress their desires, which would lead them to do something that would harm their spouses and their children.

The challenge to "do the right thing" is surely the biggest and hardest challenge human beings face in this life.  The Church--or, to be more accurate, God--calls on homosexuals, and those inclined to other forms of unethical sexual expression, to live in a way contrary to their natural tendencies.  We mustn't underestimate how hard this can be.  And yet I see no objective reason to conclude that this is something a good God would not ask of his creatures.  God is the chief good.  All other goods shrivel into nothing in comparison to him, or they resolve into him.  Being with him forever is an infinite treasure that is worth all the hardship this life can bring on us and far more.  God has allowed evil to exist in this universe, not because he likes evil or because he cannot stop it, but because he knows that allowing it will lead to a greater good.  He has allowed sin and death, and all that follow them, to enter into this world.  He has allowed his creatures to suffer.  But he is not only all-powerful, but all-good and all-benevolent.  He knows that the way of suffering is ultimately the way of eternal life and happiness.  He blazed that path himself before us.  In order to open the path to heaven for us, Christ himself, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, lived a human life, endured human hardships, and suffered and died.  Then he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.  He calls us to follow him, both into his death and into his resurrection.  This is what we are all called to, though it takes different forms for different people.  For homosexuals, part of this calling may involve a hard and painful struggle against what seems so good and natural.  It may lead to a lifestyle which can be very difficult and lonely.  But it is worth it.  God is worth it.  It will pay off in the end.  All God asks of any of us is that we choose to follow him.  We may not always do it very well, but he keeps offering us his grace.  We simply have to choose to keep getting up and trying to go forward, knowing that he is with us and that it is worth it.  And, of course, there are consolations along the way, but these will take different forms with different people.

Homosexuals are not called to deny who they truly are.  They are called, like all of us, to discipline their passions and their actions in order to learn how to better become who they were truly created to be.  And they will succeed in the end if they keep choosing to go forward.  And even along the way, for many of them, there may be ways to make life go more smoothly.  All of us, as their brothers and sisters, should strive to help them along their journey, to help them make that journey successfully, and to help make the journey itself as smooth as possible.

Doris:  Are you quite through with your sermon yet?

Natasha:  Sorry, there's just so much to say!

Doris:  I noticed.  Look, I see the points that you are making.  I'll admit, your position seems more understandable to me than it did before this conversation.  I guess that's a benefit of healthy dialogue.  But how can you know it is right to ask LGBTQ+ people to live according to these difficult Catholic standards?

Natasha:  Well, it all comes down to the question of truth, doesn't it?  Is Catholicism true or not?  If it is, then the teachings of the Church are not just human teachings, but they come from God himself, our Creator, the one who knows and understands everything, who is all-good and benevolent, and who is the source of the objective moral law.  So if Catholicism is true, if we want to get reality right and live our lives appropriately and successfully, we have to look at things from the Catholic point of view and live according to that.  On the other hand, if Catholicism is not true, then it is not from God.  Its teachings are merely the teachings of some human beings, and so there is no reason why we should take them as normative for us.

Doris:  Darn it!  I see your point, but I was hoping for some neutral way to resolve this, some way that could bypass religious disputes.

Natasha:  Then you were hoping for something that cannot exist.  There is no neutrality in ethics.  Ethics is nothing other than applied worldviews.  Therefore, the question of truth will always be paramount.  There is no getting around it.  When a person claims to be neutral, beware!  They either lack self-awareness to recognize the role their own beliefs play in their views and other-awareness to recognize that others don't share their beliefs, or they are self-aware and other-aware and wish to use neutrality to smuggle in their views as the default position without having to argue for them.  To be blunt, I think that such smuggling--whether intentional or unintentional--has played a large role in the conversion of public opinion to thinking there is nothing wrong with non-heterosexual sexual activity.  Our culture has become largely Agnostic in matters of religion and philosophy, but we mistake our Agnosticism for neutrality.  So the case for the ethicality of homosexual acts makes a lot of sense to us, and we think it's proved its case, when really it's just begged the question by assuming that the alternative views are false without any real argument.  We believe in the ethicality of homosexuality mostly because of our unexamined feelings rather than because of a thorough investigation of all relevant evidence, empirical and philosophical and theological.  As we've seen in this conversation, there is no real way to prove that homosexual sexual activity is ethical without starting by assuming that Catholicism is not true.  It cannot be proved scientifically or ethically in a non-question-begging sort of way.  We try to side-step the religious truth claims and go straight for the ethical conclusion we want, but, if we are both honest and aware, we must admit that we can only do this by begging the question, by assuming what has to be proved, by avoiding the real underlying issues.

Doris:  Well, maybe.  Before we move on though, what about the objection I raised about you Christians picking and choosing from your Scriptures?  The Bible condemns homosexuality, but it also condemns eating lobsters, and yet Catholics eat lobsters.  Doesn't that show that it's not the Bible that is leading you to reject homosexuality but your own preferences?  And isn't that bigotry?

Natasha:  In the Catholic tradition, and in the Christian tradition in general, there is a distinction to be made between different commands found in the Law of Moses in the Old Testament.  Some of those laws were intended to apply to all places and times (we call these "moral" laws), while others were intended to apply only to ancient Israel (the "ceremonial" and the "judicial" laws).  The Christian dispensation in the New Testament abrogated the latter but not the former.  Moral prohibitions regarding homosexuality fall into the "moral" category, because they are an aspect of God's original and universal design for human beings in terms of humans being created male and female, the purpose of sexuality, the nature of marriage, etc.  The prohibition to eat crustaceans is part of the "ceremonial" category of laws.  There are good biblical reasons for these categorizations which I won't go into right now, as it would take us too far afield from our topic of conversation.  I will add, though, that we Catholics believe that the Bible is to be interpreted within the context of the Catholic Tradition and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit as he leads the Church and the Church's official teachers (the "Magisterium").  And the Church has interpreted the prohibition on homosexual sexual activity as a command of general morality and the prohibition on crustaceans as an abrogated ceremonial rule.  So, in short, there is no arbitrary picking and choosing going on.  Our position here is a consistent aspect of our overall tradition.

Doris:  Hmm, interesting.  I guess I didn't realize all of that.  But, if you've still got time and you don't mind switching gears one more time, I've got one other issue I'd like to bring up.

Natasha:  What's that?

Doris:  Well, it's the T in LGBTQ+.  I saw that the Church just came out with a document in which they defend the traditional view of sex and gender as binary, and they reject the experience and identity of transgender people.

Natasha:  Do you notice how your description of the Church's position begs the question?

Doris:  What?  By saying that they reject the experience and identity of transgender people?  But they do!  Transgender people have found by their own experience, now confirmed by science, that sex and gender are not binary.  Sex is not just about outward anatomy.  It involves genetics.  It involves physiology and psychology.  Sex and gender are not just one thing; they are a combination of lots of factors, and humans don't really experience these things in a purely binary way.  They experience "maleness" and "femaleness" along a spectrum.  The old binary way of thinking is simply inadequate to address what people have always known (but not always understood) from human experience and what we now know from science, which has validated the intuitions of people who didn't fit the norm but who previously had no way of making an objective case for themselves.  Gender is not just about biological characteristics; it's really about how people feel and identify themselves.  One can have a biological sex that is traditionally "male" and yet in terms of personal identity and feeling be "female," and vice versa.

Natasha:  No doubt you are correct that there is a lot of diversity in terms of how different individuals experience their "maleness" and "femaleness."  So-called "feminists" have been spending a lot of time and energy over the past several decades trying to break down cultural stereotypes about male and female characteristics and behavior.  There is indeed a kind of spectrum when it comes to the characteristics of individual males and females.  You are also correct in pointing out that there are a number of factors involved in how we think about what constitutes biological sex.  There are anatomical characteristics, chromosomal characteristics, other physiological characteristics, etc.  If you recall your basic science in this area, we typically talk about "primary" and "secondary" sex characteristics--"primary" characteristics referring to reproductive anatomy and "secondary" characteristics referring to things like facial hair, relative body strength, body shape, etc.  However, your analysis is a bit question-begging because you fail to recognize that science and personal experience cannot by themselves determine ultimately how we should think about gender and sex if we do not also involve in our discussion a consideration of the deeper philosophical issues.  It's just as it was in our discussion about homosexuality.

Consider an imaginary transgender person: Bob.  At birth, due to his male anatomy, male chromosomes, etc., he was classified as a male.  But later on, he came to feel more and more uncomfortable psychologically with his male identity and eventually came to the conclusion that his real personal identity was female, even though his observable primary and secondary sex characteristics remained within the boundaries of the traditional "male" classification.  So Bob decided he was truly female, and became Bobette.  Let's look at two possible positions (among others) from which we could describe Bob/Bobette's situation and condition.

1. In the Catholic view, sex and gender were designed by God with reference to the overall purpose of human sexuality and gender relations.  Humans were created male and female in connection to God's intention that males and females would marry and form a household.  Sex was designed to exist within the marriage relationship in order to facilitate bonding and affection between the spouses, helping to solidify a secure household, and in order to allow procreation to occur so that children can be born and raised within the household.  In this view, "gender" and "sex" are inherently interrelated, and one cannot divorce the two.  A person is male in gender if they are male in terms of biological sex.  A person is female in gender if they are female in terms of biological sex.

So, in this view, Bob is a male, even if he feels strongly that he is a female.  He is male in gender because his biological sex is male.  He does not have the option of choosing a gender identity contrary to or unrelated to his biological sex, for that is simply contrary to the reality of what sex and gender are in God's design.

2. In an Atheistic or Naturalistic view, human nature has evolved without any divine design.  It therefore has no objective purpose, no functions it is designed to fulfill.  In this case, there is no divine mandate with regard to how we ought to define "male" and "female" (just as there is no divine mandate as to how we ought to define "marriage").  Historically, we've used these terms in connection with biological sexual characteristics connected especially to reproduction, but perhaps there is no reason why we must continue to do so.  If we find that we value a person's subjective feelings related to personal identity more than we care about objective biological sex characteristics, we might decide to define our gender in relation to the former rather than the latter.  Even if we are anatomically and physiologically male, we might choose to think of ourselves as "female" because this better suits our psychological disposition and inclinations.  Why shouldn't we?  Again, there is no divine mandate in the matter.

In this context, Bobette is a female, despite her physiological "male" characteristics, because "female" is the gender which best aligns with her sense of personal identity.

Now here's my main point:  Notice that both the Catholic and the transgenderist Atheistic viewpoint can accept all the same scientific data.  There is nothing in the scientific data by itself which determines whether we are dealing with Bob or Bobette.  That determination must be made at a deeper, philosophical and theological level.  It is wrapped up in questions of how we "ought" to think about gender and sex, which are bound up with questions about the possible intentions or lack thereof of God our Creator, etc.  In other words, the question of how we ought to think about gender cannot be answered without answering deeper questions about the truth claims of various worldviews.  If Catholicism is true, then God defines the purpose of gender, and we must think according to what he has told us.  If Atheism is true, then God is obviously irrelevant.  There is no divine mandate, and so it falls to us to define our ideas of gender according to our own preferences.  So should we define gender in terms of God's design or only in terms of our own preferences?  It depends on which worldview beliefs are really true.  Once again, as we saw in our discussion about homosexuality, there is no religiously neutral way through this issue, and to try to settle this issue one way or the other purely on the basis of our own feelings or desires or the empirical sciences will necessarily involve begging the question.

Doris:  But what about people who don't fit the "normal" mold--people who have "intersex" characteristics, such as anatomical males who have XX instead of XY?  Or true "hermaphrodites," who have both male and female physiological characteristics?  Or people who are anatomically and physiologically mostly male or female but whose brain physiology conforms to the opposite sex?

Natasha:  The Church has clearly taught that gender cannot be separated from "biological sex."  She has not, as of yet, so far as I can see, given much explicit or specific teaching on exactly what constitutes "biological sex," particularly with regard to which biological characteristics we should look to to define the essence of a person's biological male or female status.  But I think we can make some plausible inferences by considering the theological definitions of "male" and "female."  I think we probably ought to distinguish between people who are "intersex" in a scientific sense - that is, those who have physiological or genetic or other types of deviations from the ordinary characteristics of males or females, what these days are called DSDs ("disorders of sexual development") - and people who are "intersex" in a theological or philosophical sense.  The latter category would seem to be more narrow than the former category.  There are people who have biological sexual abnormalities who can still fully fulfill the essential role of male or female in terms of the theological/philosophical definitions of these roles, as I laid them out earlier.  For example, if a person has a body oriented towards playing a particular role in reproduction - say, a male role - but has an abnormality in their chromosomes or their brain physiology, this does not interfere with their ability to fulfill the essential theological definition of what it means to be "male."  They can, in principle, join with a female in marriage, form a household, procreate, and raise children.  Therefore, I think it likely we should see such a person as falling within the spectrum of the essential "male" category.  So it would seem we should see a person's "biological sex" as bound up with the orientation of the body in relation to playing a particular role in reproduction rather than with other sorts of biological characteristics, even if those other characteristics are an ordinary part of how "male" or "female" are typically expressed.  These other sorts of physical or psychological abnormalities don't alter the ability of a person to fulfill the essential functions of either the "male" or the "female" role.  And I say "the orientation of the body towards playing a particular role in reproduction" rather than simply "reproductive ability" because even if in some cases a male is prevented from producing sperm, or a female is prevented from having viable eggs or from carrying a child, I would say that they are still male and female if their bodies are oriented in design towards these things, even if some aspects of the "machinery" are not functioning properly (just as a refrigerator is still a refrigerator even if its motor is broken; it does not thereby become a toaster or something else, because it is still oriented in its design to be a refrigerator).  That would be why, it would seem, that in the Bible, for example, infertile individuals (like Abraham's wife Sarah) are still described as being male or female.

On the other hand, it does appear that there are people out there whose "intersex" condition is so pronounced in the phenotype that the design of their bodies really is ambiguous to some degree in terms of their biological sex, including with regard to the orientation of their bodies towards playing a particular role in reproduction.  In such a case, there is a genuine difficulty in figuring out how to categorize them in terms of sex and gender.  To my knowledge, the Church has not addressed this question specifically (in terms of how to categorize various kinds of intersex individuals), and I am not an expert on how this has been dealt with in the history of medicine.  But the existence of "outliers" does not change the basic definition of "male" and "female," just as the existence of gray does not change the basic definition of black and white.  We cannot use the existence of gray to justify defining a clearly black thing as a white thing, or vice versa.  In the Catholic view, God created humans to be male and female.  But we are in a fallen condition, and in this condition there is departure from the ideal in the human race.  For example, the human norm is clearly to have two arms and two legs.  But some people are born without some of these limbs.  The existence of such "abnormalities" does not change the basic definition of what is "normal" in the design of the human body.  Similarly, the existence of ambiguous sexual characteristics in genuinely intersex individuals (even "theologically intersex" individuals) does not alter the basic design of the human race as male and female, nor does it alter the divine definitions of "male" and "female."  If we see an animal at a distance and cannot tell if it is a cat or a dog, that doesn't imply that we have no idea what a cat or a dog is.  It just means we have difficulty in this particular case in applying our categories of "cat" and "dog" to this particular animal.

It is empirically evident, as well as theologically and philosophically true, that the human race exists within a basic male-female biological sexual binary, in spite of the fact that individual ("intersex") cases exist which, to some degree, blur the empirical lines of that ordinary binary.  And the fact that there is a genuine spectrum of behaviors and characteristics, and even feelings of personal identity, within these binary categories, does not erase the fact of the binary nature of the categories.  For example, the fact that you have some females who seem, at least in our culture, more "girly," while other females have a more "tomboyish" look and set of behavioral characteristics, does not erase the fact that both of these sorts of individuals exist within a clear, empirical "female" biological category, with clear sex characteristics oriented towards playing a certain role in reproduction, etc.

The binary male-female distinction and the connection of this distinction to reproductive function is part of the divine design of the human race, according to the Catholic worldview.  Therefore, if Catholicism is true, we ought to evaluate and categorize what we encounter in the empirical world according to that metaphysical framework.  On the other hand, if Catholicism is false, we will have to have some other metaphysical framework from which to evaluate and categorize the empirical data.  The main argument, then, is not really with regard to the empirical data, but with regard to which metaphysical framework we ought to adopt, and this is a question that has to be resolved by appealing not just to the empirical data but also to the domains of philosophy and theology.  Should the gender of individuals be determined by their subjective feelings of personal identity, or by their observable biological sex characteristics?  That is primarily a philosophical and theological question, not an empirical or scientific one, and so it will be answered differently depending on the philosophical and theological assumptions we bring to the question.

Doris:  But what if Bobette feels strongly that she is a female?  What if this is very important to her?  Who are you to tell her she can't define herself according to her own feelings and desires?!

Natasha:  Again, much empathy is called for.  I won't launch into another speech about that.  But, again, as we try to be compassionate and sympathetic, it must be reiterated that we all have to live according to reality, whether we like it or not, however hard that might be.  We don't get to decide what reality is like based on how we would like reality to be.  The first step is to find out what is really true, and to choose to live in accordance with that.  That is the honest thing to do.  If that means we have to do something really hard, then we must choose to do the right thing in spite of the trial.  If the Catholic worldview is the truth, then we are assured that if we follow the truth, we will find it in the end to be eminently satisfying.  But we may have to fight some hard battles before we can fully appreciate this in our actual experience.  Some of us may not attain to such appreciation until after this life.

One other thing:  You ask who I am to evaluate Bob according to my own ideas rather than according to his.  But we've discussed this previously when we were talking about homosexuality.  We all must think according to our own ideas and views.  I can sympathize with Bob's views, I can try to respect his views and respect his freedom to hold those views and live according to them as much as reasonably possible, but I can't stop thinking to be true what I actually think to be true and instead think as Bob thinks.  Nor can Bob stop thinking what he really thinks and start thinking what I think.  We are only going to think alike and view the situation alike if one of us is convinced of the other side's point of view and converts to it.  Apart from such conversion, we are going to think differently and evaluate differently.  It is not disrespectful for Bob to evaluate the world he lives in and the characters who inhabit that world, including me, according to his best reading of the evidence.  Nor is it disrespectful for me to do the same.  Nor is it possible for either of us to do otherwise.

Doris:  But what if Bobette comes to you and presents herself to you, identifying herself as female.  Are you going to ignore her own self-identification and impose yours instead as you interact with her?

Natasha:  If in general a person comes to me and requires me to think or act according to what I actually believe to be false, I am not going to go along with this.  It is no disrespect to maintain one's own beliefs and principles even when someone strongly wants you to abandon them and adopt his own instead.  Imagine a parallel case:  Let's say that, as a Catholic, I decide that since my own understanding of myself and my value is rooted in my being made in the image of God, I am from now on going to require people to address me as "Natasha, she who is made in the image of God."  But an Atheist friend of mine objects, saying that he doesn't believe in God and so cannot refer to me in this fashion without betraying his own beliefs and principles.  Is he being disrespectful towards me?

Doris:  No, because what you are asking is absurd!  You're imposing your own beliefs on him!  Besides, you're identifying yourself in too cumbersome a manner.

Natasha:  Well, if Bob comes to me and tells me that the only way I can respect him is to speak in such a way as to indicate that I believe him to be female when in fact I don't believe him to be female, how is that any different?

Doris:  Hmmm . . .

Natasha:  However, I do think that respect for a person means trying to accommodate their own preferred self-expression as much as reasonably possible.  I should not try to pick fights, but should instead go out of my way to bend to my friend's desires and what he finds important, insofar as I can do so without compromising my ethical integrity.  So let's imagine that a person comes to me and introduces herself as Francine, referring to herself with feminine pronouns.  Perhaps I wonder, based on appearance, voice, etc., if she is transgender.  Perhaps I even have other reasons to suspect that she is.  I'm not going to raise an issue over it.  I will accept her own presentation of herself and use her own pronouns, taking her word for who she is, unless I have some strong reason to do otherwise.  Likewise, if someone comes to me and identifies themself as intersex or asexual, and asks me to use gender-neutral pronouns to refer to them--well, it's not my business to pry into this person's personal life more than they wish to share, and so, as long as I have no strong reason to do otherwise, I'll accept their characterization of themself and use their desired pronouns.  Perhaps there are people in the world whose intersex condition is so pronounced and ambiguous that they ought to be categorized as asexual.  But even if I think all people ought in some way to be categorized as either male or female, I do not need to determine how to categorize this particular person, and so I can adopt a gender-agnostic and therefore gender-neutral attitude towards them in my use of pronouns, etc.  I think we are called both to honesty and to charity, and we must balance these in our interactions with others as best we can.

Doris:  An idea just occurred to me.  Perhaps this could bring our two positions a little closer together, or help them avoid clashing so much.  Since we use "male" and "female" to refer to a person's inner identity rather than necessarily to particular physiological features related to biological sex and reproduction, and you Catholics (and others like you) use "male" and "female" to refer to those biological features, perhaps we can say that we are really comparing apples and oranges here.  Perhaps we're not really talking about the same thing at all, just using the same words.  If that's the case, then perhaps we wouldn't have to disagree about the meanings of the words.

Natasha:  Hmm, an interesting idea.  So, for example, the word "male" simply means something different when a Catholic uses it and when a transgenderist uses it?

Doris:  Exactly.

Natasha:  Perhaps we could slightly alter the words to make the difference clear.  So just for the sake of this conversation, let's call the Catholic idea of male "c-male" and the transgenderist idea "t-male".  Now, going back to using our example of Bob/Bobette, I could say that Bob/Bobette is, at the same time, both "c-male" and "t-female", so there would be no conflict with my own viewpoint.  I could affirm what you want to say without giving up what I think I need to say.

A question occurs to me at this point:  If transgenderists are using the terms "male" and "female" so entirely differently, what do the words even mean?  What do they refer to?  What does Bob/Bobette even mean when he/she says that he/she is "female," since he/she is no longer talking about what most people in history would have meant by that word?  It's like if someone said, "You know, we've always defined a 'cat' as a four-legged quadruped, carnivorous, etc.  Maybe that's too narrow.  I think that 'cat' should be freed from the restriction of that definition.  In fact, I feel that I myself am actually a cat, even though I'm not four-legged, etc."  What does it even mean for this person to say he is a "cat"?  What is a "cat," if it no longer refers to the thing it always referred to before?

Doris:  Well, I don't know about the cat, but with "male" and "female", the words often refer to feelings and inclinations and states of mind having to do with personal identity.

Natasha:  But that doesn't really answer my question.  What characteristics, exactly, are referred to by "male" and "female" in the transgenderist view?

Doris:  I don't know if there's an objective answer to that question.  People are different.  There's a lot of diversity.

Natasha:  And now that you've divorced the classic sex and gender terminology from physiology and reproduction, what words are you going to use to replace them?  After all, no matter how you want to use the terms "male" and "female," you still have to deal with the biological facts regarding physiology, reproduction, etc.  Those don't just go away because you've expanded the meaning of your words.

Doris:  Yes, that's true.  I'm not sure how our language will develop in that area.  All of this is still very new.  But what about my idea of distinguishing the meaning of the terms as Catholics use them vs. the way the LGBTQ+ community uses them?

Natasha:  I don't know.  It sounds like it could have potential.

Doris:  Yeah, I don't know either.  It seems too easy in a way.  I think there may be something more at stake in this conflict than just different terminology.  What we want is to declare freedom from old forms, from old categories, and expand beyond them, while you want to limit all of us to those old categories.  I wonder if this difference can be solved merely by defining our terms.

Natasha:  Also, a lot of trans-inclined people want not only to identify as the opposite gender, but they want to alter their bodies in order to make them as much like the opposite sex as they can as a part of trying to affirm their identity as the opposite gender.  Males will take hormones to make their bodies more feminine, and vice versa.  Quite a few go so far as to surgically alter their bodies.  So if a male who identifies as a woman or as female wants to alter his body in order to make it more female, doesn't that indicate that, at least to some degree, he still defines "male" and "female" or "woman" and "man" the historic way?  He knows that "females" or "women" have certain hormonal and bodily characteristics, and he wants to try to conform his body to those characteristics.  If it were possible, he would probably go all the way and make his body completely female.  He seems still to be thinking of "male" and "female," "woman" and "man" as connected to biological sex characteristics.  So perhaps we can't read this situation simply as people coming up with completely diverse meanings of words like "male" or "woman," but rather, at least in part, and at least for some, as an attempt of people to claim that they are, in fact, the opposite sex, in something closer to the historic sense of what that means.  If that is so, then we won't solve this controversy simply by adjusting our terminology.  There is a real dispute over whether particular people are male or female given at least a related sense of those terms.  And beyond this, of course, there are philosophical and ideological goals that are incompatible, as you point out.  We Catholics believe that God designed human beings in two objective sexes, male and female, and wants us to identify ourselves with the sex in which we were created, while transgender ideology seems to want to fight against those categories philosophically and replace them with different ways of thinking.  In light of all of this, I doubt that simply adjusting our terminology is going to resolve all our disagreements.  But perhaps, in some cases, it might help ease tensions to some degree.  I don't know.

Doris:  Yes, you're probably right.  Well, I've really got to go now, or I'm going to miss the parade.  But I appreciate you taking the time and effort to respond to my concerns.  I admit that our talk has made me realize that some of these issues may be more complex than I have tended to give credit for, and you've reminded me that I have to try to understand where people are coming from even if I don't like their point of view.

Natasha:  Likewise, Doris.  Dialogues like these are so important.  We must start by seeing each other as people, as fellow human beings.  We must never divorce our disagreements from our common humanity, and we must always cultivate not only critical thinking but also empathy in our attitude and in all our interactions.  Perhaps, if we were to do so, we would find these controversies to be less intractable than we typically do, and we would also be able to live together more effectively in the meantime while we keep trying to sort it all out.

For more, see the various articles hyperlinked throughout the dialogue, as well as my earlier post on transgenderism.  See also my more general post on male and female, the body, and human sexuality.  Also, see here for the Catholic Catechism's overview of the Sixth Commandment, which deals with human sexuality.  See here for the recent statement from the Catholic Church's Congregation for Catholic Education on transgenderism, and see here for a very helpful piece from the USCCB (the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops) where they have put together quotations that express the Church's teaching on these issues.

Published on the feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

ADDENDUM 6/14/21:  I recently read an article encouraging people in the Church to get over simply condemning as unethical homosexual sexual relationships and instead focus attention on creatively thinking about how those with same-sex attraction might go forward positively in their life in the Church, particularly how those who cannot find fulfillment by entering into heterosexual marriage might develop other kinds of relationships.  Thinking creatively and positively about these things seems to be a very worthy and much-needed endeavor.  I also listened recently to a podcast from Jesuitical in which Catholic author Eve Tushnet was interviewed.  She spoke about how same-sex attraction need not be seen as purely a negative thing--a difficulty to bear up under--but also as something put into one's life by God that can lead to positive blessings.  This is true of all things in our lives, for all aspects of life are under the providence of God, and even those things that we do not want serve a purpose in our lives and can be a means of our growth and an aid to our service and living out of our callings in the world.  If this is true with every other aspect of life, why not with same-sex attraction as well?  Some very worthwhile things to think about here.

ADDENDUM 7/15/24:  Last April, the Church published a document which includes within it a brief summary of the Church's current teaching on transgender-related issues (it's a small part of a larger, broader document on human dignity).  You can find it here.