John Stewart, in his show The Problem with John Stewart, recently had an episode that addressed the plight of transgender children and their parents.

Stewart is what I would call a free-thinking liberal/progressive. (I don’t think he’d argue with that vague and expansive description) I, on the other hand, am a socially conservative but fiscally liberal Catholic who thinks following the teachings of the Catholic Church, as she defines these, really matters.

Part of the reason I think Stewart even did an episode on transgender children is because of the big push from the Right in the United States to stop the practice of children taking certain drugs and, when they get older, surgery to transition (think, Matt Walsh’s documentary What is a Woman?). Some children who deal with gender dysphoria (being physically one sex but feeling they are the other) are increasingly taking puberty blockers and, when old enough (I think, not until they reach 18) having major surgeries. (When I say children, think at least 14 years old… we’re not talking about prepubescent kids here)

I could be a little off in the details in that previous paragraph. I’m sure laws in this regard vary from country to country. But whatever the details are, it’s another example of those hot-button issues – like abortion, gay marriage, birth control, etc. – that put me, and many of us Catholics, in a bind.

I will not let go of the high ideals the church holds forth, even when the surrounding culture is going entirely in a different direction. According to the Catholic Church (and therefore, according to me), marriage is between a man and a woman, life begins at conception, and people should not get major surgery to make themselves look like a different sex than they were born with.

But any person would have to be cold and heartless if they did not, at the same time, sympathize with the dilemmas those who are gay, transgender, or faced with an unwanted pregnancy have to deal with.

The most potent section of Stewart’s transgender episode was the part where he sat down with two mothers, one of whom considered herself a conservative Christian. She described how her three-year-old – three-year-old! – was utterly depressed, never smiling, because the child identified so fully with a gender that did not correspond with the child’s sex. The mother had no idea what to do. She finally decided, because she wanted her daughter to be happy, to affirm her daughter in her decision.

The temptation for us in the Catholic faith, when responding to this, typically comes in a pair. On one hand, we are tempted to hold out the standard of the church without listening to those struggling with that standard. This may be more subconscious than anything. We may have no gay friends. We may have never met someone who transitioned or someone who has gone through an abortion. We think, “Why can’t they just pull it together? Sure, life is hard, but come on.”

On the other hand, we may be tempted to capitulate. We pretend the church doesn’t really mean what she says she means. Maybe we don’t say it out loud, but we act like these questions are in gray areas for the Catholic follower of Jesus. They’re not.

But perhaps there is a third temptation – at least for me. I begin to think I am the one who has the answer to these dilemmas. Think of the trite solutions to these thorny problems: “Just pray the gay away,” “you can just put the child up for adoption, no biggie,” “she’ll grow out of it.” However much I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon, I am almost entirely incapable of shepherding a transgender person trying to be faithful to the Catholic Church away from the depression and suicidal tendencies they feel trying to fit the round peg of their condition into the square peg of Catholic teaching. That is a job I am wholly unfit for.

So what should I do if someone who is decidedly Catholic is dealing with this but still wants to remain faithful? I think the answer is to, A) love and respect whoever it is among my friends that is dealing with these issues. Let them know that, whether they choose to follow Catholic teaching or not, I will always be their friend. And B), send them to people who have figured out how to come to peace with who they are on the one hand and what the Catholic Church teaches on the other.

I don’t believe that God puts a cross on our shoulders just to make us miserable. There is a resurrection at the other end of it. I know this is an article of faith, but I believe that there are faithful Catholics with gender dysphoria who have come to a place of peace. I believe that there are gay Catholic men and women who live chaste lives and have come to that place of peace, as well as mothers who kept their briefly unwanted children out of faithfulness to God who found that peace.

I also believe it is not an easy path to get there. And I don’t know the way there. I wouldn’t know what to say aside from vague platitudes like, “Turn to Jesus.” But I pray for those trying to walk it, and I sympathize and love those who find it a path too difficult to walk.

(Pic generated by AI at Midjourney)