What Does the Church Teach about Transgender?
Transgender is an umbrella term. It includes people whose gender identity is the opposite of the sex they were assigned at birth, and it may also include people who are non-binary.
Being transgender is distinct from sexual orientation, and transgender people may identify as heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, or asexual. Not all who identify as transgender seek medical treatments such as hormone replacement therapy or gender-reassignment (or gender-affirmation) surgery.
The Catholic Church holds that one is born either or male or female, including intersex people who are either biological boys or girls, even as they manifest both male and female anatomical aspects at birth.
In April, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith reaffirmed the Church’s rejection of hormone replacement therapy or gender-reassignment surgeries, going as far as comparing them with abortion and euthanasia as practices that reject God’s plan for human life. Its document Dignitas Infinita distinguished between medical interventions that reassign gender and “genital abnormalities” that are present at birth or that develop later. Those abnormalities can be surgically resolved.
Having a sex-change operation does not result in automatic excommunication, and the Church does not require a person who has undergone gender-reassignment surgery to have a second operation to reverse that change.
Last year, the Vatican said it is permissible, under certain circumstances, for adult transgender people to be baptised as Catholics and serve as godparents, even if they have undergone gender transition treatment or surgery.
Pope Francis has repeatedly criticised so-called gender ideology but has also emphasised that transgendered people, or any members of the LGBTQ+ community, must not be excluded, or feel to be excluded, from the Church.
Theologian Tom Nash, theology advisor at the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), advises that “we should act in love toward those who experience gender identity disorder, and reprove those who engage in name-calling and other uncharitable behaviour toward them”. Regarding preferred pronouns, “I would advise avoiding that problem and just call the person by their preferred name”, he counsels.
Published in the August 2024 issue of The Southern Cross magazine
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