Join Veronica for a conversation with Nicole, a trans woman in the process of joining the Third Order Dominicans. 

You can find Nicole @transfiguredcatholic on YouTube and Instagram. 

Subscribe to our Patreon and give us a follow @leavelaughlovepod on Instagram and TikTok to stay up to date!

Show Notes

Dignitas Infinita, the declaration on human dignity by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

What Vatican II ALMOST Taught About Sex Changes, Catholic Answers, November 17, 2021. Nicole references a draft of a document that didn’t make the final cut of promulgated documents from the Second Vatican Council. I can’t find a ton about it online, but you can check out Fr. Hugh Barbour, O. Praem., talking about it for 37 minutes on Catholic Answers (or read the transcript like I did).  

Coccinelle was an iconic French celebrity actress who underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1958, widely believed to be the first celebrity to do so. Coccinelle went on to marry a cis man in the Catholic Church, a fact which Nicole thinks sparked the discussions surrounding sex reassignment at Vatican II (see above). I’m obsessed with her. Click here for a bio of Coccinelle.

In 1997, Cardinal Raymond Burke approved the founding of the Francsican Servants of Jesus by trans woman Julie Green in La Crosse, Wisconsin. This is so shocking today because of Cardinal Burke’s current and outspoken anti-LGBT views. 

In 1975, one couple sought an annulment that rocked the Church and suggests that the Church’s positions on how to determine sex and gender are not so black and white as the conservatives want us to believe. Read about it here:  High Court’s 1975 Decision Points to Alternative Vatican Path on Gender Identity Issues, New Ways Ministry, June 17, 2019. 

Some Gender-Affirming Care May Be Permitted, Says Vatican Cardinal, New Ways Ministry, March 14, 2025. This article references new comments from Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández regarding the permissibility of sex reassignment surgeries. Cardinal Fernández is the prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and originally penned Dignitas Infinita. 

Read the unexpected and fascinating story of St. Marina the Monk here (yes this links to Wikipedia, but trust me, this narrative is way more readable than other sources). 

Read along with the Office of Readings for the feast of Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen here. Here’s just a snippet: “In this way we began to feel affection for each other. When, in the course of time, we acknowledged our friendship and recognized that our ambition was a life of true wisdom, we became everything to each other: we shared the same lodging, the same table, the same desires, the same goal. Our love for each other grew daily warmer and deeper.”