The question of gender remains contested in Catholic theology. Magisterial documents show limited engagements with questions of sexual identity and gender incongruence, and focus on a critique of what is identified as 'gender ideology'. The core of this critique is that gender and sex can be distinguished but not separated. In the wake of this affirmation, many argue that current theological anthropology is sufficient to deal with questions of gender incongruence. Those who suffer from the condition simply need to be guided to an acceptance of the reality of their sexual identity. On the other end of the spectrum there are those who challenge this approach as too strict, and they point out that identity is a multi-layered concept, that is constructed in a number of ways through different stages of life - and gender identity is no exception. In this paper, I explore this issue and argue that both sides come on too strict in the sense that they fix identity in a certain way: respectively by not allowing doubt, and by taking the experience of incongruence as a sure sign of a gender identity that is with variation with the male/female binary. In my paper I argue that 1. there needs to be more room for the experience of incongruence in education and formation, and 2. a more refined approach to questions of gender acknowledges the reality of suffering caused by persistent forms of incongruence, i.e. dysphoria, and that it is possible to both novel categories (sexual identity) and classic ones (therapeutic principle, virtue) to open a plane for dialogue. I will argue for the possibility of dialogue, as well as for its necessity, since in the current state of things Catholic theology runs the risk of 'freezing' the question. This means that there is little guidance for pastoral ministry, and little engagement with new biopsychosocial approaches that may advance the state of the question.