A Roman Catholic priest married a transgender couple late last month, allowing it on the grounds that they were of opposite biological sexes.
Solange Ayala is a noted trans activist man from Argentina who presents as a woman and has been featured in several pro-LGBTQ campaigns across the country, protesting and advocating for greater rights, freedoms, and social acceptance for transgender people.
On January 28, 2025, He married his longtime partner ‘Isaías,’ a biological female who presents as a man, in a Roman Catholic church in the city of Corrientes.
Speaking about the ‘marriage’ celebration, Ayola told Radio Sudamericana (translated to English)
“We went through the process like any other, we started a marriage file, we approached the friar to talk and he received us very well, we had a chat, he explained the steps to follow and he himself went to speak with the archbishop and told us that there was nothing that could object to our being able to get married, because if we were to be transparent about our biological identity, we were a man and a woman, so we could be blessed under the sacrament of marriage.”
He added that it was incredibly emotional for them to receive the sacrament, and also not without an agenda.
“For me it was very exciting, Isaiah also received it with much more emotion. I was a little distant from Catholicism, because of all that stuff that’s kind of ingrained and that we often generalize within activism, but it was exciting to know that it’s another way to be active and occupy spaces , so it was a matter of reaffirming my commitment to it and being able to show that we could be part of the community like everyone else.”
Ayola praised the church and the priest for the “respect”they were shown, noting that while their baptismal certificates had their “dead names,” their marriage certificate featured their new trans names.
“It’s a matter of them being informed, they know there’s an identity law, because I was saying, they could have easily told me, ‘We’ll marry you, but we’ll marry you with the name that’s on your baptismal certificate,’ and the reality was that no, the priest understood everything from the beginning and gave the blessing with the names we have today.”
