U.S. Bishops Condemn Healthcare for Trans, Nonbinary & Intersex Catholics

In the latest blow to trans rights and justice, a doctrinal committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops released a new document forbidding gender-affirming procedures to treat gender dysphoria.

2013 Rally for Transgender Equality 21166" by tedeytan is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Earlier this week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine released a document condemning various gender-affirming medical procedures for transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals. The bishops’ committee mandates that Catholic health providers cannot perform gender-affirming procedures, including surgeries or chemical treatments. 

In this 14-page document, titled “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” the bishops’ committee claims that “technological interventions” to repair or restore a “defect” of the body are morally licit, and that medical interventions requiring “mutilation” may be licit depending on certain criteria, especially if “fundamental human order” isn’t altered or impacted. However, the committee argues that procedures to treat gender dysphoria aren’t morally acceptable because they attempt to change or transform the body and treat a false disorder. The committee also emphasizes natural law theology and argues that gender-affirming procedures disrupt this “fundamental human order” and disrespect the “sex differentiation” of the human body. 

It’s clear that this document from the U.S.C.C.B. is not only deeply transphobic and sexist in nature, but is also another attempt by the bishops to dictate decisions made between individuals and their healthcare providers. Many Catholic organizations and individuals, lay and clergy alike, have criticized this new document for its lack of nuance and understanding of natural law, medical ethics, gender dysphoria, and the experiences of non-cisgender individuals. 

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, said in a statement: 

The bishops’ document, coming from its Committee on Doctrine, does not begin with the experience of transgender people. In fact, there is no evidence that a single trans or nonbinary person was consulted in preparing it. Further, the document follows a typical ecclesiastical style of refusing to engage with or even acknowledge experts’ advice. Nearly every major medical and psychological organization finds that gender-affirming medical interventions positively aid transgender people’s human flourishing. This professional consensus about the best standards of care for transgender people is absent from the bishops’ text.

Sr. Mary Haddad, RSM, president and CEO of the Catholic Health Association, which oversees the largest non-profit hospital system in the United States, said that CHA will continue to be in dialogue with transgender, nonbinary, and intersex patients and provide those patients with the same standard of care, but did not state specific details about these procedures:

Our members are committed to careful analysis of new scientific evidence and its application in relation to guidance from the Ethical and Religious Directives (ERDs). As public-serving ministries, Catholic healthcare providers also follow applicable federal and state laws which recognize the freedom of Catholic institutions to follow the ERDs in ways that make our healthcare authentically Catholic. We remain committed to honoring the human dignity of everyone, including transgender patients and their families, and to providing them with the best possible medical and spiritual care.

Franciscan Fr. Daniel P. Horan writes in the National Catholic Reporter that this document is “nothing short of a disaster” for its theological and ethical failings and, more importantly, its abuse of power. After outlining the ways in which this document is theologically flawed, Horan criticizes the bishops for issuing a doctrine that may be used as a license to further discriminate against transgender, nonbinary, and intersex individuals:

Documents like this one are a form of formal cooperation with evil because there are people who will read this and use it to justify excluding real people, harming real people, or denying medically necessary treatment to real people, and this last point is the clearly stated intention of the authors.

Legislation targeting trans healthcare, especially for those under the age of 18, continues to gain momentum across the United States. Earlier this month, Tennessee became the fourth state in this legislative session and the sixth state overall to block minors from receiving gender-affirming medical procedures. Mississippi, Utah, and South Dakota also ban gender-affirming care to treat youth experiencing gender dysphoria, and laws in Alabama and Arkansas are currently enjoined by federal courts.