#trans devotees

According to Matson, 39, his “disclosing,” as he describes it, is a moment years in the making. He offered his story as indicative of the often difficult path for trans Catholics, including those seeking life as a religious — a category that includes brothers and nuns.

“I am currently based in the Appalachian mountains of eastern Kentucky,” he wrote in an email to friends and supporters on Sunday. “I live in a hermitage at the top of a wooded hill, which I share with my German Shepherd rescue, Odie, and with the Blessed Sacrament, which was installed in my oratory shortly before Christmas.”

[...] Matson approached a canon lawyer to discuss his options and was told that only two aspects of Catholic life were categorically off the table: marriage and the priesthood. According to Matson, the canon lawyer recommended being upfront about his status as a transgender man in any vocational conversations with church leaders and mentioned the role of a diocesan hermit, which could prove less challenging than enlisting with an existing religious order.

[...] What followed was roughly a decade of searching and no small amount of rejection. Living in the United Kingdom while pursuing a master’s degree, and later a Ph.D. in theology, Matson entered a vocational discernment program and approached the Jesuit order to ask if he could join.

“They said, ‘No, we just don’t see how this would work for us,’ which was crushing, because that’s where I felt called,” Matson said.

[...] “I thought, well, if I can’t find a religious community to sponsor me, maybe what I need is a bishop,” Matson said.

A priest friend recommended different bishops to contact, beginning with Stowe, who was emerging as a leading voice among Catholics calling for a more tolerant approach to LGBTQ+ people. In 2020, Matson sent Stowe a letter, conveying his status as a transgender man, his vision for an artists’ community and his pull to religious life.

Stowe wrote back immediately, expressing his openness.

“It was an enormous relief,” Matson said. “I was in tears. I felt my hope revive.”

[...] Matson vented his frustrations to Stowe and his spiritual director, saying he wanted to speak out. But he said he was advised to first “build a foundation” in religious life for several years.

During that time, Matson had an experience that shook him. Attending a friend’s play in his religious habit, he was approached by a student who identified as trans and nonbinary. After asking if Matson was a monk, the student said they were raised Catholic, but that their parents had rejected their identity, and the student felt like they “don’t have a place in the church anymore.”

Matson responded by saying there were people in the church who would support the student, and Matson prayed with them, asking God to show the student how they are “wonderful the way you’ve made them.” The student, Matson said, grew emotional, thanking the hermit profusely and saying, “No one from the church has ever affirmed me for who I am.”

[...] As for ever leaving Catholicism itself, Matson bristled at the idea, calling the church “my family.” “I’m Catholic,” he said. “I became Catholic after I transitioned because of the Catholic understanding — the sacramental understanding — of the body, of creation, of the desirability of the visible unity of the church and primarily because of the Eucharist.”

At the very least, Matson said, he hopes going public will spark dialogue about his fellow transgender Catholics, a discussion he believes can enhance unity among the body of believers.

An epitaph to Trygonion, a devotee of Rhea. She was equated with both Cybele and the Roman Magna Mater, who famously had a cult of transfeminine devotees known as the galli. Note that "Trygonion" is a feminine name. "Cypris" refers to Aphrodite, and Lais was a famously beautiful sex worker.

Wicca is definitely pretty binary focused. Its also diverse and there are many different ways of practicing Wicca, but the fundamental theology is based in a strict binary of the Mother Goddess and the Horned God, and a lot of its beliefs are based on this balance of male/female. As a result much of early Wicca (and some modern Wicca) was very homophobic & gender-sex essentialist (there's also Dianic Wicca, which is goddess-centric and therefore very popular with TERFs). There are trans Wiccans & Wiccan paths which are less binary (or less strict about it), but I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to engage with it.

With Witchcraft, there's a lot more room because "witchcraft" itself isn't its own spiritual tradition as much as a practice or skill you can engage in. In a very general sense Witchcraft is "doing x thing to get y result (through some spiritual/supernatural/mystical method)," so how much you get into cissexism and binary thinking is really dependent on how you see things. For example, a Wiccan might have a very binary view of magic & spiritual energy, but another person might not consider gender at all when doing magic.

A lot of European & WANA (West Asia North Africa) polytheism has some genderfuckery somehwere in its mythology. Inanna/Ishtar in Sumerian/Akkadian/Assyrian polytheism is one example: you might be aware that She had transfeminine devotees called the gala, and she was described as having the ability to "turn a man into a woman and a woman into a man." She has a myth where she descends into the Underworld to confront her sister Ereškigal and gets trapped there. To get her out, Enlil/Ea creates either two sexless beings (gala-tura and kur-jara), or one androgynous being/eunuch (Asušunamir) to save her.

There's also Cybele/Magna Mater in Rome, who also had transfeminine devotees called galli. In Greek polytheism, there is Dionysus, who was heavily associated with gender non-conformity, having been raised as a girl in some versions & having the epithet Androgynos. Aphrodite has the form Aphroditus, who has a beard penis and was worshipped by male and female devotees through crossdressing rituals, and generally her role as Aphrodite Pandemos, a love goddess for all people, has made her popular with queer polytheists. There is also Hermaphroditus, the child of Aphrodite and Hermes, who became intersex/genderqueer when he joined bodies with the nymph Salmacis; a pool formed where this happened that was said to have the ability to androgynize anyone who bathed in it. They were, as you can imagine, heavily associated with androgyny and the union of male and female. In Norse Heathenry, Loki has been seen as an androgynous figure; he transforms into a woman/female animal in multiple myths, and in the Hyndluljóð he eats the heart of a woman and gives birth to several creatures.