Joan of Arc

Was Joan of Arc a lesbian or transgender person?

Within the Catholic Church, there are divergent opinions about the contributions that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) persons can make with regard to the spiritual growth of the Church. Many members of the Church feel either hopeful or dismayed by the outreach Pope Francis has expressed toward the LGBT community.

Historians have criticized writers such as Vita Sackville-West (1892-1962) for implying Joan was a lesbian and cross-dresser (transgender person). What has changed?

Sackville-West's biography of Joan, Saint Joan of Arc, was published in 1936. Historians correctly noted that bedding was relatively scarce in the 15th century, and sleeping in the same bed cannot be construed as evidence of sexual intimacy.

Historians addressed claims of cross-dressing by stating the need for Joan to protect herself from sexual assault in prison as well as the need to dress in men's clothes during military operations. While both of those arguments are true, they neglect to address other evidence, which in its entirety, clearly makes it reasonable to conclude Joan was a lesbian and a transgender person.

Marguerite la Touroulde, widow of Réné de Bouligny, advisor to the king, testified the two women shared a bed nearly every day for three weeks. While that statement cannot be construed as evidence of sexual intimacy, Touroulde also testified, "I saw her several times in the bath and in the hot-room, and so far as I could see I believe that she was a virgin." (Pernoud, 2007, The Retrial of Joan of Arc)

That quoted portion of Touroulde's testimony is conspicuously omitted from a popular English translation that has been republished and replicated numerous times on the web. The incomplete text, translated and edited by T. Douglas Murray and published in 1902 under the title, Jeanne D' Arc, Maid Of Orleans, Deliverer Of France, claims: "The official Latin text of the Trial and Rehabilitation of Jeanne d'Arc, rescued from oblivion among the archives of France, and published in the forties [1840s] by Quicherat, has been faithfully, and now for the first time, rendered into English." Ironically, Murray's decision to omit that single sentence from Touroulde's testimony speaks volumes.

Some historians have countered that because Touroulde said Joan "was a virgin" that this also implied an absence of sexual intimacy with women, but that assertion isn't supported by other evidence in the trial transcripts.

Regarding evidence that Joan was a transgender person, many of Joan's statements during her trial reveal an extreme level of reluctance to give up wearing men's clothes, even temporarily, so that she could attend Mass and receive Holy Communion. If her sole reason for wearing men's clothes was to help protect herself from sexual abuse at the hands of her English jailers, she would have no reason to refuse women's clothes for the purpose of going to Mas