"Male and Female He Created Them: Toward a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education," issued June 10 by the Congregation for Education, in large part repeats church teaching found elsewhere.

It addresses issues of education in schools, the role of parents as primary educators and what the authors refer to as "gender ideology."

Bishop Michael C. Barber of Oakland, Calif., chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for Catholic Education, issued a brief statement welcoming the document.

He said, "in a difficult and complex issue, the clarity of church teaching, rooted in the equal dignity of men and women as created by God, provides the light of truth and compassion that is most needed in our world today."

The authors of the document point to areas of agreement in the gender debate, including the need to "respect every person in their particularity and difference, so that no one should suffer bullying, violence, insults or unjust discrimination based on their specific characteristics (such as special needs, race, religion, sexual tendencies, etc.)" (No. 16).

"Every school should therefore make sure it is an environment of trust, calmness and openness, particularly where there are cases that require time and careful discernment," according to the document.

"It is essential that the right conditions are created to provide a patient and understanding ear, far removed from any unjust discrimination" (No. 56).

In terms of the dialogue surrounding the issue, the authors prescribe "following the path of listening, reasoning and proposing" (No. 52).

"I can certainly agree with a portion of the title which calls for dialogue, and the opening paragraphs which stress the importance of listening," said Luisa Derouen, a Dominican sister who began serving the transgender community in 1999.

The rest of the document, she said, lacked grounding in lived experiences.

"I found it quite jarring...that after those initial paragraphs there was abundant evidence that those writing this document had certainly not engaged in open, reverent, listening dialogue with transgender people," Sister Derouen said.

"I have accompanied them for 20 years and I do not recognize the people I know from the harsh and dangerous description of them in this document."

Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago also noted the invitation to engage in a dialogue about transgender issues.

"The document points out that dialogue must be free of ideologies, whatever their origins," he said.

"We should also keep in mind the essential principle Pope Francis has often articulated—that realities are greater than ideas. This principle is especially important when dealing with pastoral situations, which always require us to be in touch with the experience of people's everyday lives."

The Rev. Bryan Massingale, a moral theologian at Fordham University, also stressed the importance of experience and called the document an "interim response" from the Vatican on questions of gender and gender identity. Continue reading

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She later described feeling like she was in "doctrinal limbo" because there is no universal teaching on gender from the church.

"I'm hurt by the Catholic Church every single day," she said. "They want me and they don't want me."

On June 10, the Vatican released a document that seems to seek to clarify the ambivalence Fay and other transgender Catholics have described.

It is the most comprehensive document on gender identity the Vatican has ever released.

Called "Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Questions of Gender Theory in Education," the document aims to address what it calls "educational crisis" surrounding sexuality and gender.

But its conclusion has not been received favorably by trans Catholics; it says that Catholic schools must help teach young people that gender is fixed at birth.

According to the Congregation for Catholic Education, the Vatican office that released the document, "gender theory" has misled people to think that gender is different from biological sex.

"Oscillation between male and female becomes, at the end of the day, only a ‘provocative' display against so-called ‘traditional frameworks', and one which, in fact, ignores the suffering of those who have to live situations of sexual indeterminacy," the authors write.

The announcement comes at a time when trans people's rights are under threat on a national level.

Last month the Trump administration announced a proposal to roll back protections for discrimination against trans people by healthcare providers.

Transgender people make up only 0.6 percent of the US population, and they are about 8 times as likely to report attempting suicide than the rest of the population.

This rate rises even higher depending on the type of discrimination they are subject to, says a 2014 study by the Williams Institute.

It is not clear why the Congregation for Catholic Education has decided to weigh in on gender identity now.

The past few years have seen a rapid increase in conversations about LGBTQ Catholics within the church — the Vatican used the acronym LGBT for the first time in June of last year, in a document written for a meeting of bishops in Rome. In a final version of the document, the acronym was removed.

In the United States, attitudes of Catholics have been shifting.

Sixty-eight percent of Catholics in the United States say they feel more supportive toward transgender rights than they did five years ago, compared to 62 percent of the general population, according to a survey conducted this year by Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).

In 2017, Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest, wrote "Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBTQ Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity," a book that affirmed LGBTQ Catholics and received praise from several bishops as well as members of the LGBTQ community for advancing the conversation on this topic.

The new document talks about gender and transgender people in a less polemical way than the church has done previously. (Pope Francis, for example, has in the past compared arguments for transgender rights to those for nuclear weapons.)

It dedicates a section to "Listening" and "Points of Agreement" that concedes that "unjust discrimination" has been "a sad fact of history" and has taken place within the church.

But it also reiterates views that the pope and the US bishops has expressed which characterize transgender people as "choosing" their gender on gender, which themselves have been called transphobic and discriminatory by some trans Catholics.

So what does this mean for transgender Catholics? Here, five trans Catholics respond. Continue reading

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The Holy See's Congregation for Catholic Education says the document is intended to help guide Catholic contributions to the ongoing debate about human sexuality and to address the challenges that emerge from gender ideology.

Catholic schools must help parents teach young people that biological sex and gender are naturally fixed at birth and part of God's plan for creation, the Congregation says.

However the document, published during LGBT Pride Month, was immediately denounced by LGBT Catholics as contributing to bigotry and violence against gay and transgender people.

Gay advocacy group New Ways Ministry says the document, which rejects the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insists on the sexual "complementarity" of men and women to make babies, would further confuse individuals questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation and at risk of self-harm.

The Congregation rejects this idea, saying the Catholic Church and those proposing a looser definition of gender can find common ground.

It says common ground can be found in "a laudable desire to combat all expressions of unjust discrimination," in educating children to respect all people "in their peculiarity and difference," in respecting the "equal dignity of men and women" and in promoting respect for "the values of femininity."

While agreeing it's important to be very careful to respect and provide care for persons who "live situations of sexual indeterminacy," the document also points out that those who teach in the name of the Catholic Church must help young people understand that being created male and masculine or female and feminine is part of God's plan for them.

Those who see gender as a personal choice or discovery unconnected to biological sex are, in fact, promoting a vision of the human person that is "opposed to faith and right reason," the document says.

Not so, says Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote "Building a Bridge" - a book about improving Catholic Church outreach to the LGBT community.

"The real-life experiences of LGBT people seem entirely absent from this document."

"We should welcome the Congregation's call to dialogue and listening on gender, and I hope that conversation will now begin," he says.

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