Why the 'Feminine Genius' is Broken
collage created by Max Kuzma
If you study catholic thinkers on gender, they talk about the feminine and masculine genius. Let's take the feminine genius for a second. What is it? How can we define it? Essentially, this theology (which is informed by JPII's theology of the body), assigns theological meaning to human body parts and asserts that true happiness and wholeness only comes when someone is living according to that theological meaning. By this logic, the feminine genius truly boils down to the fact that women can bear children. If all you are looking at is a woman's body, and assuming that God intended for the body to be the fulfilment of someone's gender, then you create a theological train of thought that centers care-giving and nurturing activities. Everything you read about the theology of women is informed by this. Softness, receptivity, emotionality.
The feminine genius is, of course, the foil to the masculine genius, which is all about strength, protection, and leadership. There is an assumed connection between someone’s physical body and their personality traits that we know is just not the case. “Strength” does not belong exclusively to male physical achievement anymore than “tenderness” belongs exclusively to female emotional expression.
Some women love the idea of being wives and mothers. Some women want to run companies and be CEOs. Some men love the idea of working hard to provide for their families. Some men want to be a stay at home dad and take care of the kids. This gendered theological thinking, however, creates a social (and I would argue theological) hierarchy where women and men who most strongly conform to traditional gender roles have the most social respect and affirmation because it is assumed that they are living out what God intended more perfectly than the people who do not conform to these roles.
My own ability to understand my trans identity came after I spent an extremely long time untangling all of these threads and realizing that people ardently defend traditional gender roles because they believe without any actual evidence that strict adherence to those roles is morally superior. They would more highly value a stay at home mom than a stay at home dad. Think about that. Why should the stay at home mom be more understood, appreciated, and loved? Wouldn't the sacrifices of a stay at home parent be equal regardless of gender? (Sacrifices like... the time and energy to care for children day in and day out and managing a home, etc).
Recognizing my trans identity involved rejecting the premise of this kind of theology. Being presumed female at birth and treated like a woman for years does not make me a woman. Men and women should not have their femininity or masculinity judged by how well they adhere to binary gender roles. The people who would mock someone for articulating the experience of knowing you do not feel you are a man or a woman (the non-binary experience) are the same people who create and market products like: the “Combat Rosary,” the “Man’s Bible,” and “Catholic Beard Balm.” Are they truly guarding a rigid understanding of sex as gender or are they just making a parody of themselves?
Of course there are people who will end up being okay with most of the items on the “traditional gender roles” checklist. Of course there are women who love being mothers. Of course there are men who love being providers. But the existence of these types of people does not erase the existence of everyone else. Nor should these people be held up higher as a standard or as holier just because of their natural inclinations. These people should not be able to see more of their faith reflected in their lived experience than anyone else.
Transgender people exist. We are not trying to stop anyone from living out their understanding of their own gender. We are just trying to live out our understanding of our gender. Society makes this exceptionally difficult, which is why the trans suicide risk is so high. When you look at the people who are most vocal against us, you will find they are searching for reasons to believe that trans people are malicious, or part of an agenda intent on radicalizing and destroying families. Meanwhile, none of that is true. We are just trying to live our lives while they go on a witch hunt (and create laws against us that hurt cis-gender people too).
If reading this blog convicts you, please pick one topic you don’t know much about in regards to trans people and do a google search right now to learn more about it, and share with a friend. We must fight the disinformation coming from the alarmist voices that think there’s some hidden agenda when really trans people just want to live.
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For more / related content, check out this episode from the podcast, Straight White American Jesus “ Weekly Roundup: Why Are They Trying Write Trans People Out of Existence” where they talk about how the trans body challenges the straight white christian because of what we assume a body should look like.
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