What Is a Woman? Applying Thomistic Principles to the Case of Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome

Even in extremely conservative circles, the question “What is a Woman?” is controversial when one examines the case of persons with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS), wherein the person has XY chromosomes and testes, but due to a total inability to respond to testosterone, the person develops in all ways in a feminine fashion (the person will also be infertile). Some Thomist scholars have argued that these people might be sexless, or that we cannot determine what sex they are, or that they are women. Using Thomistic principles of human sexuality, teleology, hylomorphism and the conclusions of biology, I will argue that these persons are ontologically male, albeit with a severe disorder of sexual development (DSD). Thus, these persons are not eligible for Catholic marriage. Then, I will suggest that these men (who have the bodily and psychological features of women) should live as women in society, thus proposing an authentically Thomistic “trans-genderism” which differs totally from the ordinary use of the term.