The Errors that Archbishop Vigneron Makes about Gender
Archbishop Allen Vigneron of Detroit
Today’s post is from Bondings 2.0 contributor Lisa Fullam, D.V.M., Th.D.
A recent pastoral letter by Detroit’s Archbishop Allen Vigneron, titled “The Good News About God’s Plan: A Pastoral Letter on the Challenges of Gender Identity,” starts with an affirmation of the goodness of humanity and reiterates a key aspect of a Catholic understanding of the human person: we are “an integrated union of body and soul.” In a Catholic understanding, we are not spirit imposed on unruly (or evil) matter, nor are we merely matter somehow come to self-awareness, but always incarnate spirit. The human person is a body-soul composite.
That’s a great start, but then with regard to transgender people, Vigneron asserts that there is afoot “an alternate, ‘dualist’ vision of mankind [sic], growing in popularity in recent years. This vision sees the human person as inherently divided and separated; it claims that there can be opposition between a person’s body and soul.” The archbishop presents this view as a belief that one’s gender identity is freely chosen (he implies capriciously chosen, though he does not use the term), in disregard of one’s biological sex.
Let’s focus on the two related errors regarding gender identity in Vigneron’s letter:
Error 1: Biological sex (bodily) is fixed and binary
Vigneron reduces the notion of sex to its chromosomal basis. He recognizes the existence of people who don’t fit the usual XX-and-phenotypically (i.e. in appearance)-female or XY-and-phenotypically-male model, but says only that “God created them for a special purpose in life.”
Given that the number of people who are not simply XX-female or XY-male is not trivial, he seems to rule out that God’s “special purpose” for them might be in part to invite us to recognize that biological sex, in fact, is more complicated than a chromosome exam can reveal. Sex has hormonal, environmental, and biochemical determinants, not just XX or XY versions. On this matter, Vigneron is guilty of gross oversimplification, like imagining that all New Yorkers are Yankees fans because, well, New York.
Error 2: Gender identity tracks unerringly with biological sex, and is a matter of “soul”
Here, Vigneron is guilty of the very dualism he claims to oppose. Gender identity is a bodily/biological phenomenon, not merely a matter of “soul,” and is influenced by genetic, neuroanatomic, hormonal, and psychosocial factors. The unified human person is a body with particular traits related to sex (chromosomes, hormones, organs, secondary traits) and at the same time ensouled, possessing an inner sense of oneself as male or female or other, based on the same bodily array and a host of psychological, environmental and other influences as we make meaning out of our total selves.
The possibility of gender identity at odds with biological sex becomes obvious when one recognizes the complexity of biological sex, and the bodily as well as psychological nature of gender identity.
Archbishop Vigneron could have done the scientific research, or—he could have asked around. Had Vigneron taken time to practice the loving accompaniment he recommends, he might have discovered that many trans people are, in fact, in agreement with him on the question of body/soul dualism. Many trans people are endeavoring exactly to better align their gendered/sexed souls with their sexed bodies, in many ways, from pronouns to surgery, that many trans people pursue. Cisgender people do that too, of course, as theologian Craig Ford, Jr., has noted: consider, for example, a woman getting breast enhancement or implants to emphasize or augment her gender identity as female.
If Archbishop Vigneron had pondered a bit more, perhaps talked with some trans people and/or some physicians or scientists, he might have discovered that the rejection of body/soul dualism is part of many trans people’s journeys—and he and they would be on the same side.
—Lisa Fullam, March 9, 2024
Hi Lisa, thank you for your insight with which I fully agree.
Beautifully said!
One thing all of these theologians who speak as if being transgender is a mental health issue to be corrected have in common is ignorance. They do not speak with anyone who is transgender nor do they speak with anyone in the medical field who works with transgender individuals. If I presented a paper in college with all of my citations from former theologians with like minded beliefs and totally ignored lived experiences of those I spoke about or current research in the area, my work would not receive a very high grade. Mere mortal men need to stop condemning individuals they do not understand without trying to get to know them. No man has the right to say I do not deserve human dignity or God’s love just the way I am. We are all created in God’s image!! I really believe these men are reading different scripture than I am.
I wonder whether Vigneron’s concern regarding dualism has to do with the language people use, such as being born in the wrong body, or otherwise drawing distinctions between one’s identity and one’s body, which he thinks betrays a Platonic or Cartesian dualism — I assume he means “dualism” as Platonic or Cartesian, given that the hylomorphism he advocates is also a type of dualism.
Anyway, just trying to work through his meaning in a way that wouldn’t be contradictory.
Great question. The usual bugaboo is Manichean dualism, rooted in the Manichees’ theology of a fundamental duality of the realm of Goodness/Light/Spirit ruled by the true God and the realm of Evil/Darkness/Matter, ruled by an opposing evil power. Matter is always at war with Spirit. In our time, our spirits are entangled in evil matter, and our task is to resist the impulses of matter and be returned ultimately to a purely spiritual Paradise. So those who accuse trans folk of dualism are accusing them of seeing their bodies as evil or wrong, and opposed to their souls. A poor and over-simplistic understanding of trans identity, it seems to me.
I’m not sure where the archbishop thinks he gets his authority on this subject.
There ought to be a disclaimer on these types of pronouncements: ie, “The views expressed are the subjective opinions of the archbishop, and are not necessarily shared by those in the medical field, human science community, transgender people with lived experience, nor their friends, family members, and allies.’
The Catholic Church only sees who they want to see. We were all created in the image of God- All!! They forgot and exclude!!