Originally published at National Catholic Register
University of Notre Dame professor Abigail Favale created a stir not long ago with the release of the Genesis of Gender (Ignatius Press), a review of the current transgender confusion and its implications for the sacrament of marriage and, in fact, the entire Catholic Church.
The book was preceded by her 2018 memoir, Into the Deep (also Ignatius), which described this evangelical-raised Midwesterner’s slow but steady journey from a committed feminist to an ardent Catholic.
Into the Deep was reissued in August 2024, with a few minor changes and revisions. Taken together however, the two books can be seen as a blended narrative outlining how the author’s recognition of feminism’s shortcomings propelled her toward “an unlikely Catholic conversion.”
The tension between Christianity and feminism was still an open question as Favale began writing the memoir, but it would play a major part in sitting down to compose the Genesis of Gender book.
After outlining Favale’s progression to Catholicism, the Genesis of Gender discusses the concept of gender and how it is understood in a Catholic paradigm.
“When I wrote the conversion memoir, I was still figuring out my relationship to feminism as a new Catholic,” Favale told the Register.
