Religions and trans people: what faiths really say

People with a gender identity that does not conform to their sex assigned at birth have existed in every culture and every era. And in every era, religious traditions have had something to say about it. Not always what one might expect. The dominant narrative tends to reduce the relationship between religion and trans people to a head-on conflict: faith on one side, identity on the other. The reality is more nuanced, more ancient, and in some ways more surprising. This article explores what the great religious traditions actually say, beyond the headlines.

Gender diversity and religion: a millennia-old history

Before examining contemporary positions, it is worth recalling a fundamental historical fact: gender diversity is not a modern invention, nor is its presence in religious contexts. Ancient sacred texts, from the Jewish Mishnah to the Indian Vedas, from Buddhist chronicles to the traditions of Native American peoples, document the existence of people who did not fit within the male/female binary [7][10]. In many cases, these individuals held specific spiritual roles. The hijra of South Asia participated in Hindu religious ceremonies [9]. The Two-Spirit people of Indigenous North American cultures were considered to possess a unique spiritual perspective. The galli, priests of the goddess Cybele in ancient Rome, lived in a gender different from the one assigned at birth.

The tension between religion and non-binary gender identities, in short, is not a universal constant. It is a historically situated phenomenon, tied to specific traditions and specific readings of sacred texts.

Christianity: a fragmented landscape

The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church’s official position was most clearly defined by the declaration Dignitas Infinita, published in April 2024 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith [1]. The document states that “any sex-change intervention, as a rule, risks threatening the unique dignity that the person has received from the moment of conception” and condemns “gender theory” as an attempt to erase the sexual difference between man and woman [1]. Pope Francis has called gender ideology “the most dangerous thing” of our time.

However, the same Catholic Church shows important nuances. In 2023, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, with the approval of Pope Francis, signed a declaration affirming that transgender people can be baptized, serve as godparents, and act as witnesses at weddings [2][14]. Francis himself has met with trans people on multiple occasions, granting them private audiences. In October 2024, he received a group of transgender and intersex Catholics in an audience lasting nearly ninety minutes, and after the publication of Dignitas Infinita, he reiterated to Sister Jeannine Gramick that trans people “must be welcomed” [2].

In Italy, the influence of the Catholic Church in public debate is particularly significant. Organizations like La Tenda di Gionata, founded in the late 1990s, work to create spaces for dialogue between the LGBT community and the Catholic world. In 2025, during the Jubilee, over 1,500 LGBT pilgrims from around the world passed through the Holy Door: the first openly LGBT pilgrimage in the history of the Church [15].

In November 2025, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to officially ban gender-affirming care at Catholic hospitals, incorporating the 2024 Vatican documents [3]. The result is an evident tension: pastoral welcome on one hand, doctrinal rigidity on the other.

Protestant denominations: a theological rainbow

Protestantism has no centralized magisterium, and positions on trans people vary enormously from one denomination to another. In May 2024, a historic milestone was reached: the four major American Protestant denominations — Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and Lutheran — had all removed barriers to the full participation of LGBTQ+ people in church life [4].

Some significant milestones:

• Episcopal Church: has issued official statements of full inclusion for trans people, including the possibility of ordination to ministry [12].
• United Methodist Church: in 2024, it dismantled its anti-LGBTQ+ policies, eliminating bans on same-sex marriages and gay clergy after decades of internal controversy [4].
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA): in 2021, Megan Rohrer became the first openly transgender person to be consecrated as bishop in the denomination’s history [4].
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): since 2010, it has removed specific barriers to the ordination of transgender people [12].
• United Church of Christ and Unitarian Universalist Association: among the historically most welcoming denominations, with explicitly inclusive positions for years [12].

At the opposite extreme, many evangelical and Pentecostal churches maintain firmly opposing positions, considering gender transition incompatible with biblical teaching. Pew Research Center data shows that 68% of white evangelical Protestants in the United States believe that society “has gone too far” in accepting transgender people [11]. Sixty percent say their religious convictions have significantly influenced this opinion [11].

The Orthodox Churches

The Eastern Orthodox Churches generally maintain conservative positions, considering gender identity inseparable from biological sex and opposing medical transition. However, there are minority voices within the Orthodox world that promote a more dialogical and pastoral approach.

Islam: a plurality of voices

Islam has no central authority comparable to the papacy, and positions on trans people vary enormously across legal traditions, theological schools, and cultural contexts [5].

Khomeini’s fatwa and the Iranian case

The best-known and most counterintuitive case is that of Iran. In 1967, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini published a fatwa declaring the absence of religious restrictions on surgical gender reassignment for intersex individuals [6]. In 1985, he extended this fatwa to transgender people with gender dysphoria [6]. The story is linked to Maryam Khatoon Molkara, an Iranian trans activist who wrote directly to Khomeini requesting tolerance toward transgender people: she obtained a fatwa that was subsequently confirmed by the current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei [6].

As a result, Iran is today one of the countries with the highest number of gender reassignment surgeries in the world [6]. The state offers partial subsidies for surgery, and changing the gender marker on documents is available after the procedure. However, this does not mean that the lives of Iranian trans people are easy: the pressure toward surgery as the only legitimate option, the persecution of gay people (transition is sometimes imposed as a “solution” to homosexuality), and social stigma remain serious problems [6].

The Islamic legal reasoning behind the fatwa is based on two principles of the Shia tradition: the principle of permissibility (isalat al-ibahah) and the principle of legality (isalat al-hillyyah), according to which everything that is not explicitly prohibited is permitted [5].

Sunnism and other traditions

In Egypt, Sheikh Muhammad al-Tantawi, Grand Imam of al-Azhar, issued in the 1980s a favorable opinion on surgical reassignment in specific cases, which was subsequently subject to divergent interpretations [5]. In the majority of the Sunni world, however, dominant positions tend to be more restrictive. The Assembly of Muslim Jurists of America (AMJA) issued a fatwa distinguishing between intersex people (for whom corrective surgery is permitted) and transgender people (for whom transition is considered forbidden) [5].

In Southeast Asia, local cultural traditions have created historic spaces for gender diversity within majority-Muslim societies. In Malaysia and Indonesia, the waria and mak nyah communities represent traditional gender identities with roots that predate the arrival of Islam.

Judaism: six genders in the Talmud

Judaism offers perhaps the most fascinating case of textual complexity. The Mishnah and the Talmud, the foundational texts of Jewish law, describe not two but at least six categories of gender and sex [7]:

1. Zachar — male
2. Nekevah — female
3. Androgynos — a person with both male and female characteristics
4. Tumtum — a person whose biology is indeterminate or hidden
5. Aylonit — a person assigned female at birth who develops male characteristics at puberty
6. Saris — a person assigned male at birth who later develops female characteristics

These categories are not marginal: they appear hundreds of times in Talmudic texts, because the rabbis needed to determine how to apply halakhah (Jewish law) to people who did not fit within the binary [7]. The androgynos, for example, is treated in some contexts as a man, in others as a woman, in still others as both, and in others as neither.

The rabbis of antiquity did not know about chromosomes and hormones, but they clearly understood that sex and gender are independent variables. The Jewish mystical tradition (Kabbalah) also discusses the possibility that biblical figures such as Dinah and Isaac experienced gender changes.

Modern denominations

Reform Judaism and Reconstructionist Judaism have explicitly inclusive positions. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism states that the Torah teaches gender fluidity and transgender justice [8]. Conservative Judaism (Conservative/Masorti), through the United Synagogue and the Rabbinical Assembly, affirmed in 2023 that “people with transgender experience have the obligations and privileges of all Jews.”

Orthodox Judaism generally maintains more restrictive positions, while an evolving internal debate continues on how to apply halakhah to trans people while respecting their dignity.

Hinduism and Buddhism: the third gender

Hinduism and the hijra tradition

The Vedas (1500-500 BCE) describe three natures (prakrti): pums-prakrti (male nature), stri-prakrti (female nature), and tritiya-prakrti (third nature) [10]. The Kama Sutra repeats the same tripartition. Within this framework lies the millennia-old tradition of the hijra, communities of people who identify as neither men nor women [9].

The hijra have a specific religious role in the Hindu tradition: their participation in birth and marriage ceremonies is considered auspicious [9]. According to the Ramayana, the god Rama blessed transgender people and granted them the power to bless and curse [10]. Many hijra are devotees of the goddess Bahuchara Mata and consider their gender a spiritual vocation.

In 2014, the Supreme Court of India (NALSA case) officially recognized the third gender, explicitly citing the cultural and religious roots of this identity in the subcontinent’s tradition [9].

Buddhism

Ancient Buddhist texts mention various categories of non-binary gender. The Vinaya (the monastic discipline) discusses in detail the cases of ubhatovyanjanaká people (with characteristics of both genders) and pandaka (a complex category, variously interpreted). The Buddha himself, according to the scriptures, was relatively tolerant toward people whose gender was discovered to be non-conforming only after ordination, and there are examples of such people who remained in the monastic community, respected for their spiritual advancement.

The Dalai Lama has expressed nuanced positions, accepting transgender identity from a secular and human rights perspective while maintaining some reservations from the standpoint of traditional monastic discipline. In Thailand, a predominantly Buddhist country, kathoey (third-gender people) have high social visibility, although legal recognition remains limited.

The Italian context: between doctrine and welcome

In Italy, the relationship between faith and trans identity plays out almost entirely in the Catholic sphere, given the Church’s predominance in the country’s religious culture. The situation is marked by a constant tension.

On one hand, the official doctrine remains clear: Dignitas Infinita and the pronouncements of the Italian Episcopal Conference leave no room for ambiguity about the institutional position [1]. On the other hand, pastoral practice on the ground tells a different story. Individual parishes, individual priests, and organizations like La Tenda di Gionata and Progetto Gionata offer spaces for listening and prayer for LGBT believers. The Catholic monthly Jesus has devoted investigations to the Church that “walks alongside transgender people.”

The Waldensian and Methodist churches in Italy represent a distinctly different voice in the national religious landscape. The Waldensian Evangelical Church has adopted progressive positions on LGBTQ+ rights, offering a Protestant alternative for those seeking a welcoming faith community.

Twelve years of Francis’s pontificate have left a mark in style — gestures, encounters, new words — without substantially modifying doctrine. The result, for many trans believers, is a paradoxical experience: feeling welcomed by the pastor and rejected by the institution.

Trans people of faith: reconciling identity and spirituality

For many trans people, faith is not something to flee from but a fundamental dimension of their lives. The challenge lies in finding spaces where both dimensions — gender identity and spirituality — can coexist without one having to be sacrificed for the other.

Experiences are extremely diverse. Some people find in their faith tradition the language and support to understand their identity. Others go through periods of deep crisis, in which the message of condemnation perceived from the religious community intertwines with the process of self-acceptance. Still others leave organized religion only to return, or find a home in traditions different from their original one.

What the research clearly shows is that faith does not disappear with transition. A Pew Research Center survey found that religiously affiliated people who are not cisgender often maintain an active relationship with spirituality, even when they leave their community of origin [11][12].

Welcoming religious communities and organizations

In nearly every faith tradition today, there are organizations working specifically for the inclusion of trans people:

• New Ways Ministry (Catholic): promotes justice and reconciliation for LGBT people within the Catholic Church.
• Transmission Ministry Collective: an online community dedicated to spiritual care and faith formation for transgender Christians, created by trans people for trans people.
• Keshet (Jewish): works for the equality of LGBTQ+ people within Jewish life.
• Muslims for Progressive Values: an international network that promotes inclusive interpretations of Islam.
• Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC): an international Christian denomination that celebrates and affirms transgender, non-binary, and gender non-conforming people.
• La Tenda di Gionata and Progetto Gionata (Italy): spaces for dialogue and spirituality for Catholic LGBT people.

In 2023, leaders from several major American religious traditions signed an unprecedented joint declaration in support of trans, intersex, and non-binary people, explicitly recognizing their dignity and their place in faith communities [13].

A landscape in motion

The relationship between religions and trans people is not static. It is changing, in different directions, simultaneously. Some denominations are moving toward greater inclusion: the Methodists dismantling decades of barriers in 2024 [4], Conservative rabbis affirming the rights of trans people, Catholic parishes opening their doors without waiting for Vatican permission. Others are becoming more rigid: bishops banning care at Catholic hospitals [3], evangelical communities strengthening their boundaries, theocratic governments exploiting religious tradition.

For those reading these lines — whether a trans person of faith, a Catholic parent trying to understand, or simply someone who wants to be informed — the most honest message is this: there is no single answer. Every religious tradition contains within itself diverse voices, texts that can be read in different ways, and communities that choose different paths. The decision about how to live one’s faith and identity belongs to each individual. No article, no fatwa, and no Vatican document can substitute for that personal discernment.