Wilgefortis of Portugal, The Transgender Fasting Saint
Wilgefortis was a teenage noblewoman who had been promised to marry a Moorish king by her father. However, she wanted to take a vow of virginity. So she prayed to God that she would become ugly and undesirable to men. She also began to starve herself as a form of protest. In answer to her prayers, she supposedly sprouted a beard, which ended the engagement. Wilgefortis’s father was so angry about her defiance, that he had her crucified. While Wilgefortis was never officially made a saint by the Catholic Church, she has become known as a “folk saint”, because people began praying to her for her pious devotion to God, and the apparently miraculous beard she grew. In modern times, many people have begun to call her the “transgender saint”.