Were Trans Women Snubbed by Pope Leo?

At the Vatican’s annual “meal for the poor,” Pope Leo XIV continued Pope Francis’s tradition of inviting transgender participants, yet, in a change from the previous pontiff, he did not include an invitation to sit at his table. As a transgender person, this change causes more than a disturbance in me.  First, let’s look at the facts.

Pope Leo at the papal luncheon for the Jubilee of the Poor.

In mid-November, several transgender women from a Catholic parish in Torvaianica, Italy attended a Vatican luncheon during the Church’s weekend Jubilee of the Poor. The event was part of an annual opportunity to welcome over 1, 3000 marginalized individuals to share a meal at the Vatican Each year several participants are invited to sit at the pope’s table to share their stories and converse with him. In 2023, Pope Francis invited a group of transgender people to the luncheon, requesting that two of them dine with him at his table. He repeated both invitations in 2024.

One of these women, Catholic transgender activist Alessia Nobile, subsequently met with Pope Francis several times. After Francis’s death, Nobile reached out to Pope Leo to request an audience with him, and she received an invitation to the Vatican’s annual luncheon. According to Katholisch.de, Nobile “hoped for the opportunity to have an open conversation with Leo XIV about the realities of life for transgender Catholics and to appeal to him to maintain a course of openness.”

Because neither she nor any of the other transgender participants sat with the pope, none had the opportunity to engage in conversation with him. 

Nobile was able to present a letter to Pope Leo on behalf of the trans community, ane he responded with a smile. Reflecting on the brief interaction, Nobile spoke of a cautious hope that Pope Leo might continue the compassionate accompaniment she and her peers experienced from Pope Francis: “That he’d mingle, that he [sat] close to [us], that’s a good sign, right?” 

Others, however, have interpreted this move as a possible snub or potentially a step back from Francis’s work with the transgender community. Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Papal Almoner (official who distributes alms to the needy), denied this interpretation and reported that the seating was simply determined by who arrived first. The seats at the main table were “given to poor parishioners who had previously attended a Eucharistic service,” and the transgender individuals who arrived later simply “sat elsewhere,” he said. 

It may well be the case that the change was simply a matter of timing and had nothing to do with the transgender women themselves–yet when I see a headline like this, I cannot deny the pit in my stomach that I feel to hear of yet another place where trans people were once invited but now are no longer. 

It is a scary time to be trans in the world, and it is a scary time to be trans in the Catholic Church. Each party lost an opportunity to make a connection, each lost a moment to build a bridge. I do not necessarily think that the choice to not include trans people at his table was an intentional rejection by  Pope Leo, yet I do consider it a great lost opportunity for relationships, connection, and understanding. 

I also think about what might have been going through the women’s minds at the dinner. Perhaps it was bittersweet, to know that they at least were still invited to the meal–yet also knowing that the opportunity to share their stories and have a genuine encounter with the pope was lost.

Trans people will never reach full inclusion and full acceptance if people’s awareness is only that we exist. While indeed it is not meaningless to be thought of at all, it is not enough to abstractly know that we are out there. We must be met face-to-face. Especially at a time when we are being villanized and targeted, it is crucial that we have the opportunity to present ourselves openly and honestly to others and that we have the opportunity to be received with compassion. 

My hope is that these women–as well as the many other transgender Catholics who desire to share their faith journeys with the wider Catholic world–have another opportunity to meet Pope Leo– an opportunity in which they are able to converse and share of themselves. It is only then–when our faces, names, and stories are acknowledged–that we will truly begin to be recognized as human beings, rather than simply a category of marginalized people. 

—Phoebe Carstens, New Ways Ministry, Decembe 16, 2025