ASK FATHER: Bisexual woman called hypocrite by mother for not accepting sister’s transgender lifestyle

From a reader…

QUAERITUR:

I am a young woman who also happens to be bisexual. Because it clashes with my faith values, I freely choose NOT to act on my sexual attraction to women. My family, who is NOT Catholic, doesn’t understand this. In fact, my mother thinks I am a hypocrite for not agreeing with my sister’s transgender lifestyle, because my being bisexual somehow means I must agree with and understand her.

How can I explain this situation to my family, in a way that doesn’t disrespect them or devalues my faith?

Ahhh yes.  The Dictatorship of Relativism about which Pope Benedict XVI warned us, is in full swing!

If the supreme virtue is tolerance and acceptance, why doesn’t your mother accept and tolerate your viewpoints?

Of course, the short answer is that tolerance and acceptance are usually one-way streets. Everyone must tolerate and accept deviant lifestyles, but traditional views and mores are not to be tolerated in any way, shape or form.

I think that most people who live deviant lifestyles recognize, deep down in themselves, in the quiet parts of their minds, that their actions are wrong. They may have, with some limited success, beaten their consciences into submission, but “with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace, deliberate speed, majestic instancy, they beat – and a voice beat, more constant than the feet, ‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me’” to quote Francis Thompson. To keep themselves from hearing the inner voices of their conscience – and verily, the voice of God – they need a ringing chorus of support and “understanding” to help them maintain the illusion that what they are doing is perfectly normal, perfectly, healthy, and a perfectly legitimate choice.

How to convince your family? In most cases, impassioned intellectual arguments don’t do it. Prayer, certainly. Pray for your family, especially your sister.

But don’t forget to pray for yourself.

Turn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that burns with impassioned love for all of us, and wants what’s best for us.

By cultivating a life of prayer and virtue, you will develop a happiness and inner sense of peace. Get involved in some form of wholesome volunteer work, according to your talents and your interests. Develop a healthy circle of virtuous friends who share your faith and your beliefs.

The emotional support that you should ordinarily get from your family will probably not be there for you and so you may have to rely more heavily on your Church family.

By showing your family the happiness and peace you will find in a life of prayer and virtue, you might just find that their hearts and minds will be more open to the truth.

Seek joy in holiness.  Joy is communicable.

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15 Comments

  1. guans says:

    “Everyone must tolerate and accept deviant lifestyles, but traditional views and mores are not to be tolerated in any way, shape or form.”
    = the understatement of the century.
    Such a beautiful answer- can be applied universally.

  2. Boniface says:

    God bless you for doing what is right and pleasing to God, and most healthy for yourself! It takes courage to go up against the vapid dominant culture. Explain to them that you love your sister and yourself, and that these attractions do not define either of you, and therefore you are freely choosing (what a concept in contemporary culture!) to act according to the best in you. Prayer, patience, and perseverance may win them over in time. Rest assured that deep down, your sister knows what she is doing can’t make her happy. Stay the course and fight the good fight! Peace and joy, as you know, are on the road ahead.

  3. slainewe says:

    “I am a young woman who also happens to be bisexual.”

    It seems to me that the acceptance of a Catholic making this statement is part of, if not all of the homosexualism problem in the Church today. There is no such thing as BEING a bisexual, or homosexual, or pedophile, or any of the over 500 classified types of paraphilia. Sexual perversion is a temptation, and not part of who one is, no matter how much of a grip it has on an individual. As a temptation, it is a matter between oneself and one’s confessor, and not one’s family. No one reveals to his family that he is sexually attracted to the married woman next door, or his sister, or his daughter. So why would one announce homosexual temptations, unless he has swallowed the heresy that God made him that way?

    It seems to me that all this woman need do is tell her mother that she was mistaken; that she mistook an outside temptation for an interior quality. She is NOT a bisexual. (And any further temptations she has in this area are none of her mother’s business.)

  4. Eugene says:

    Beautiful response Father. I will pray for this brave lady.

  5. wised says:

    This is the perfect script for a liberal soap opera. The only thing that would make this even more heartwrenching for her family would be if she were attracted “only” to heterosexual men! You cannot make this stuff up. I will say a prayer for her entire family.

  6. Venerator Sti Lot says:

    Without any detraction from the wisdom of Fr. Z’s practical response:

    In terms of the ‘content’ of how to “explain this situation”, the reader is surely the opposite of a hypocrite, and could make the ‘intellectual argument’ that this is so (resisting becoming improperly or ineffectually ” impassioned”, and realizing neither success nor even an intellectually honest response may follow).

    Even as she properly rejects “act[ing] on [her] sexual attraction to women”, so she rejects her sister’s acting on her attraction to a “transgender lifestyle”. This, while properly Catholic, is also possible for someone of ‘another religion’ or none who is convinced that acting on such attractions is improper. (By way of comparison, I know a very pro-life atheist biologist.) I think Our Lord’s words in St. Matthew 5:27-28 – “You have heard that it was said to them of old: Thou shalt not commit adultery. But I say to you, that whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her, hath already committed adultery with her in his heart” – are comprehensible to someone of ‘another religion’ or none, as well. One does not have to act on a strongly- and in some sense ‘ sincerely’-felt attraction, if one perceives and decides it is not good to act on it. One can equally encourage others in situations one perceives to be analogous to refrain as well.

  7. JesusFreak84 says:

    I wonder if this young woman could benefit from the collective minds of a local Courage chapter? Not only would she receive support and affirmation in resisting her own same-sex attractions, but maybe someone there’s been in a similar scenario and has some wisdom to share?

  8. Sonshine135 says:

    wised:

    May I suggest a title for said soap opera?: As the World Burns

  9. Traductora says:

    This young woman is certainly in a very difficult situation. One of the problems is now there is no longer pressure to be normal, but instead there is pressure to be abnormal and even approval and praise for sinking into one’s own personal confusions and not adhering to the objective standards (for example, Church doctrine) that could have provided stability and guidance.

    I was a little disturbed to see that the Pope received a “transsexual” and her female “fiancé” in a private audience the other day, and the transsexual said that she felt “affirmed” by the encounter.

    This is a Spanish woman who had surgery to pretend she is a man, and the other woman she was living with before the surgery. Apparently she held off doing it for years – because her mother wouldn’t have approved. After her mother died, she began her surgery. So that shows you that the influence of the society around you can be very important.

    I wish the Pope hadn’t received them (I’m not sure why they merited a private audience) because this is one more thing that seems to support abnormality and confusion and error above natural and Christian norms. It’s not a good message, and probably puts more pressure on people who are struggling.

  10. Mojoron says:

    All I can say is, WOW! This is the first lesbian that I have heard who has CHOSEN not to act on her sexual desires. I will pray the Rosary for her!

    The other interesting factoid, and I’m speaking because I am a scientist, is there are two women with the same condition in the same family and a mother who is more than accepting of the “other” daughters “choice” than of the writer. There is a heavy psychological and bio-social event going on here, I’d love to know more. But I’ll pray instead.

  11. Suburbanbanshee says:

    Re: the pope — Someone with pull asked for the audience, and “neglected” to mention the person’s state of confusion about XX vs XY chromosomes.

    The person is the head of some charity group, and was received for that reason without the Pope’s administration knowing about the rest of the story.

    Outright attempt to embarrass the Pope and make a scene, facilitated by curious Vatican reluctance to use search engines.

  12. The Cobbler says:

    Mojoron, for what it’s worth, I’ve noticed that one usually doesn’t hear about most of the people who choose not to act on their sexual desires.

  13. slainewe says:

    “I’ve noticed that one usually doesn’t hear about most of the people who choose not to act on their sexual desires.”

    Exactly! (Unless one has an ear pressed to the confessional door.) And I object to the use of “choose not to act on” rather than “have been blessed with the grace not to act on.”

    After I posted my comment on the 27th, I was overjoyed to read Phil Lawler’s column “The Best Argument Against the ‘Celibate Gay Catholics’.” (Sorry I don’t know how to do links.)

    I have been waiting 20 years for the Church to start understanding that it is as uncharitable to label oneself or another as “gay” for having same-sex temptations, as it is to label oneself or another as a liar for having un-truth temptations. I mean, really, why don’t we have “Honest Liar Catholics” and “Pro-Life Murderer Catholics” and “Generous Greedy Catholics”? Why doesn’t every sin have its own little special interest group?

    We are called to immediately cast from our thoughts ALL temptations. I don’t see how someone can come to the point of calling themselves “gay” unless they have been dwelling on this particular temptation. If I am an American fighting an invading enemy, say, the nation of Kasperia; do I stop mid battle and start calling myself a Kasperian? Ridiculous! Then why do Catholics fighting the temptation of same sex attraction stop to call themselves “gay?”

  14. Ben Kenobi says:

    @theCobbler

    “one usually doesn’t hear about most of the people who choose not to act on their sexual desires.”

    Wise words. Very much like Coolidge, it is not?

  15. gramma10 says:

    A very inspiring warm response Father.
    God loves this lady more than we know.

    I agree with you and truly believe that a close intimate relationship with Christ would eventually substitute for That unnatural human desire.

    I think in daily meditation, daily mass, Lexio Divina in scripture and most of all very frequent quiet communing with Christ in an adoration chapel…..would be perfect places to begin asking the Lord to be her real true spouse and to please take any unnatural human desire away.

    Ask Him to substitute this desire for a deeper desire for God to be her true spouse.
    I believe He will answer her heartfelt prayer.
    And….I would surely also talk to Blessed Mother Mary asking for her intercession.
    She will understand and respond in love.

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