Saint Hildegurnd

You can be a girl, but dress and pass as a boy and still become a saint.  Hildegund of Schonau is an example of this.  It seems that she was dressed as a boy when she was making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, to protect her.  She was 12 at the time.  In her slow adventurous travels back to Germany, she remained dressed as a boy.  Then she was admitted to a Cistercian monastery in her home town, as a boy.  She never took vows, but her sex was not discovered until her death.  She was a good enough nun/monk to be made a saint.  Cistercians do a lot for contemplative prayer.  God does not seem to care, nor does the contemplative, about one's sexual orientation.  In contemplation one does not focus on the body anyway.  One does not focus on anything for that matter, but being in the Presence and open to the Will of the Creator.  So if you are having trouble with your sexual identity, you might want to make Hildegund your patron saint.  Not that she had any problem with it, but she might be a reminder that how you dress or look on the outside, is not all that important to God.  If you feel hated, it is not God who is doing the hating.  Thank you, St. Hildegund.