Editor’s note: On each religious and secular levels and in seemingly every corner of the US, debates about gender identity and gender theory have turn out to be more distinguished—and more contentious—lately. This summer, America asked two professors of theology with backgrounds in gender studies, Abigail Favale of the University of Notre Dame and Elizabeth Sweeny Block of St. Louis University, to answer the 2019 Vatican instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, “‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Query of Gender Theory in Education.” After each scholars offered their thoughts on the Vatican instruction, America then invited each to answer the opposite. The next texts represent this exchange. The conversation will proceed online at americamagazine.org.
A Truly Catholic Approach to Gender
A consistent theme within the writings of Pope Francis throughout his pontificate has been a critical stance toward gender theory. The query of gender is intimately connected to his concerns in regards to the technological domination of nature and the necessity to cultivate an integral ecology—an ecology that sees the human person as a part of the created order. “Learning to just accept our body, to look after it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an important element of any real human ecology,” he wrote in “Laudato Si’.” The 2019 instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education, “‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Query of Gender Theory in Education,” relies heavily on Francis’ encyclicals and addresses, primarily “The Joy of Love,” in addition to the writings of his two papal predecessors. The last three popes, it seems, speak in unison on this theme.
The fundamental methodology of “Male and Female He Created Them” is a great one: Listen, reason, propose—with the aim of meaningful dialogue. One special advantage of being Catholic is the invitation to approach any idea or text with a spirit of generous curiosity: What truth will I find here? Yet at the same time as we seek shared ground, we have now to be honest in regards to the deep fissures between the implicit worldview of gender theory and a Catholic understanding of reality. These two ways of seeing diverge sharply on the subject of conceptions of reality, anthropology, sexual difference, embodiment, language and freedom.
Where I see probably the most synergy between the Catholic paradigm and the gender theory paradigm is of their shared desires: the need for body-soul unity, the need for the body to disclose the person, the need for rebirth, the need for belonging. The trail of accompaniment through the precarious terrain of gender may need to occur along these currents of shared desires, these good desires.
This summer, amid a growing debate about gender identity in the US, America asked two professors of theology to revisit the 2019 Vatican document on “‘gender theory in education.”
But the last word problem of the gender theory paradigm is that it makes guarantees it cannot fulfill since it is built on a false anthropology. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say it’s built on false anthropologies, because there are several on offer. All of them, nonetheless, reject the concept that there may be a givenness to the created order, especially to our sexed bodies—and I mean “given” each within the sense that we have now an intrinsic nature and that this nature is a present.
The Catholic view of the body, as articulated by John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis alike, is at odds with that of gender theory, which sees the body as a tabula rasa, waiting for extrinsic meaning that may only be inscribed by the desiring will and/or institutional power.
Within the Catholic view, being a person or a lady is personal reality—meaning it refers back to the totality of the person. Gender thus includes the body but can’t be reduced to the body: An individual is a biological-psychological-spiritual unity, one who’s time-bound, embedded in history and culture. We’re sexed beings; that is a component of what it means to be human, and our sexed nature is the bottom of our personhood and likewise a sacramental sign of our ultimate purpose: to present and receive love.
Many assume that speaking of the truth of sexual difference—maleness and femaleness—necessarily ignores those that are born with congenital conditions that affect sexual development, also often called “disorders of sexual development” (DSDs). There are over two dozen discrete conditions that fall under the cover of DSDs, and every is different in its impact on one’s health and the most effective therapeutic response. The oft-used label “intersex” is an outdated and imprecise term; DSDs is best, but the most effective terminology is condition-specific (e.g., “a person with Klinefelter’s syndrome”).
The claim that the existence of DSDs upends the sex binary is dehumanizing, since it implies that an individual with a DSD is something “other,” exempt from the truth of maleness or femaleness altogether. The truth is, many DSDs are sex-specific, and the overwhelming majority don’t involve any apparent sexual ambiguity at birth. People who do are exceedingly rare (0.02 percent of all births), and in these cases, the main focus have to be on supporting the person’s unique needs.
The church must be clear and informed on this query due to the confusion that abounds.
The church must be clear and informed on this query due to the confusion that abounds. Furthermore, the church, due to its defense of bodily dignity and integrity, generally is a powerful voice against the practice of infant genital mutilation—invasive surgeries on babies born with a DSD which are harmful and medically unnecessary.
A very Catholic approach to gender must also take a more global scope, and this effort is obvious in Pope Francis’ writings. A framework that actively seeks to erode sex-based categories might be readily imbibed by wealthy, cushioned, laptop elites—but it would not speak to the experiences of most individuals on the planet, especially most girls, whose lives are very much contoured by the facticity of femaleness.
Increasingly, the US and Canada are outliers; Europe is pulling back from letting purveyors of gender identity theory set the protocols for caring for gender-questioning youth. In Sweden, which has been a pioneer in the event of medicalized gender transition, the federal government issued latest recommendations in February for addressing pediatric gender dysphoria. After conducting a scientific review of all available scientific evidence, the Swedish government concluded that the risks of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones outweigh the possible advantages and that hormonal treatment for young people ought to be sharply curtailed.
Similar course corrections are happening across Europe; countries similar to France and Finland are urging caution, paying greater attention to scientific evidence and prioritizing psychotherapeutic interventions for young people. In July of this 12 months, Britain’s National Health Service announced that it’s shutting down the Tavistock gender clinic after an external review concluded the clinic had failed in its look after vulnerable youth. Tavistock will likely be replaced by regional clinics that take a holistic approach and prioritize mental health support. The US, in contrast, is charging ahead, not less than on the federal level, while certain states try to ban medical transition for young people. In America, this contentious debate is fueled by the ever-renewable resource of political polarization and a profit-driven health care system.
The church on this historic moment has each an obligation and a chance to talk the reality in regards to the human person, the goodness of the body and the sacramental meaning of sexual difference. In its high regard for the body, the church can also be ready to welcome the complete range of human personality. When gender is seen as sex-lived-out, grounded within the sexed body, it is not any longer defined by rigid stereotypes about how men and girls should look, feel, be and behave. A boy who would somewhat knit a shawl than throw a football is just as much a boy, just as authentically masculine, as a star quarterback. It’s because the male body, not a specific affectation or trait, is the bottom of masculinity. The church must avoid the temptation to, in a panic, reassert pink versus blue scripts about gender.
We have to be willing to walk alongside those that are questioning, at the same time as we profess the great thing about the Catholic way of seeing.
Pope Francis’ statements on gender, in addition to the “Male and Female He Created Them” document, ought to be read as addressing the framework of gender theory and never as a wholesale rejection of individuals who might adopt that framework for a variety of various reasons. No two stories are ever the identical. The church needs to carry onto a distinction between individuals with complex, varied experiences and the dominant framework(s) that interpret and shape those experiences.
While it is a difficult distinction to make after we are talking about frameworks of non-public identity, it’s an important one to carry. Relating to ideas, the church must patiently yet boldly speak the reality. Relating to people, the church have to be attentive to the person, to the desires, wounds and experiences which are being expressed.
To present one practical example of how this balance could possibly be lived out: Perhaps a priest could give a homily on the great thing about Catholic anthropology and the view of sexual difference expressed within the creation accounts in Genesis. In line with these accounts, our sexed modes of being human are the head of creation, the ultimate flourish. Then, at the top of this homily, the priest could issue an invite to those that query their gender or discover as transgender: I’m glad you’re here. Please come say hello; I might love to listen to more about your perspective and experience.
We, laity and clergy alike, have to be willing to walk alongside those that are questioning, at the same time as we profess the great thing about the Catholic way of seeing. That’s the tightrope the church has to walk on this moment—with tenderness and beauty, but additionally with firm steps.
Abigail Favale is a professor within the McGrath Institute for Church Life on the University of Notre Dame. Most recently, she is the creator of The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory (Ignatius, 2022).
Real Listening
Greater than three years have passed because the Congregation for Catholic Education published the Vatican’s singular statement so far on questions of gender identity, intended to guide and support Catholic educators, including families and lay organizations. In “‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Query of Gender Theory in Education,” the congregation turns its attention to not individuals who’re transgender and nonbinary but, more abstractly, to criticism of “gender theory” and “gender ideology.” The document understands this as “an ideology that…denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a person and a lady and envisages a society without sexual differences.”
The text focuses its criticism on theory and beliefs about gender, with no attention to people’s lived experiences and questionable reliance on science. As states across the US introduce laws that profoundly affects transgender individuals, and given the continued discrimination and pain endured by transgender youth and adults alike, this document is price revisiting to contemplate its strengths, address its failures and suggest next steps for the church.
It’s difficult to seek out strengths on this document. It acknowledges that sexual differences between men and girls vary in distinct cultures. This recognition of diversity, nonetheless minimal, is essential. It also emphasizes the importance of our bodies. Bodies are indeed essential parts of our personal identities and relationships—each more and fewer essential than they are sometimes made out to be.
The document also insists that children ought to be taught “to respect one and all,” which is definitely true, but this strength is diminished by the caveat to welcome specifically “legitimate expressions of human personhood,” which suggests not actually welcoming everyone. Any small steps forward are overshadowed by glaring omissions and misplaced blame. I’ll concentrate on three: the absence of real listening, the mistaken claim that radical autonomy is in charge for the existence of transgender and nonbinary people, and the shortage of engagement with science.
The document is split into three parts, based on actions suggested for each individuals and communities. The primary of those is to listen “rigorously to the needs of the opposite, combined with an understanding of the true diversity of conditions.” Despite this objective, considered one of the best failures of this document is the absence of true listening, except to “cultural events of recent many years,” after which only filtered through the angle of the Congregation for Catholic Education.
“Listening” here consists of describing schools of thought that deny the givenness of our sex and subsequently our gender identity, thereby eroding the biological basis of the family in favor of “a vision of the family that is solely contractual and voluntary.” Such a claim assumes that gender theory goals to dissolve all differences amongst individuals, which is solely not true. “Listening” without actually hearing the stories of transgender and nonbinary individuals yields the mistaken conclusion that confused concepts of individual freedom, free self-determination and radical autonomy are in charge for the existence of transgender and nonbinary individuals.
Real listening requires meeting transgender and nonbinary people where they’re, hearing their stories, struggles and experiences of God.
Real listening requires meeting transgender and nonbinary people where they’re, hearing their stories, struggles and experiences of God, understanding their journeys as best we will and being open to being formed by these encounters. The church must engage lived experiences together with scripture, tradition and reason. In any case, each of those sources will depend on and exists due to lived experiences.
The absence of real listening results in the erroneous conclusion that the goal of “gender theory” is a society without sexual differences and that a false sense of freedom is in charge. “A confused concept of freedom within the realm of feelings and desires, or momentary desires provoked by emotional impulses and the need of the person” are cited because the reason behind gender nonconformity.
Catholicism has long held, and rightly so, that freedom just isn’t limitless autonomy but somewhat is linked with and depending on truth and other values, similar to fidelity, goodness and relationality. The “Pastoral Structure on the Church within the Modern World”asserts that freedom is perverse when it’s used as a “license for doing whatever [one] pleases,” in contrast to “authentic freedom…[which] is an exceptional sign of the divine image in man.” Human dignity necessitates that individuals “act in line with a knowing and free alternative that’s personally motivated and prompted from inside, not under blind internal impulse nor by mere external pressure.” Real freedom is freedom for the great and the just, and the alternative to do evil is an abuse of freedom.
In “The Joy of Love,” Pope Francis shares these same concerns about limitless autonomy, but he also equates authentic freedom with an “openness to what is sweet, true and exquisite, or our God-given ability to answer his grace at work deep in our hearts.” I share the church’s concern about freedom that ignores our relationality and the flourishing of all, but this concern is misplaced with respect to transgender people and their supporters.
Furthermore, it’s unfair and unjust to accuse transgender and nonbinary people of an abuse of freedom without having listened to them. Transgender individuals describe feeling relief and affirmation in addition to a way that they are not any longer fighting but somewhat following God’s will. This just isn’t the careless, reckless autonomy described in “Male and Female He Created Them,” nor are these decisions about gender identity made flippantly. These are decisions of conscience.
It’s unfair and unjust to accuse transgender and nonbinary people of an abuse of freedom without having listened to them.
Third, the document asserts the inseparability of sex and gender and an inflexible understanding of “biological sex” that ignores the range and complexity of human beings. The document states that a “person’s sex is a structural determinant of male or female identity,” as if these are universal identities with stable characteristics, similar to “women’s capability for the opposite” and girls’s central role in education.
The church must listen also to the science that tells us that an individual’s sex is more complicated than what’s indicated by external genitalia and X and Y chromosomes. Sex traits are complex and nonbinary, and include genes, chromosomes, hormones, external primary sex characteristics, secondary sex characteristics and more. These traits definitely have something to do with one’s gender but in far more complicated ways than the document conveys.
Transgender and nonbinary individuals and proponents of gender theory aren’t attempting to negate difference. Quite, they’re revealing to us that difference is messier than any binary can reflect. The differing gifts and qualities that everyone brings to relationships are essential, but surely our biological features and sex characteristics aren’t a very powerful thing about us.
Repeatedly, biology is treated as the first measure of just relationships. Sex and gender aren’t as straightforward as implied on this document. The church would do well to have interaction scientists, anthropologists and sociologists, who can provide vital insights, and to contemplate that biology is simply one piece of human relationality.
These next steps require all members of the church to proceed with humility and a willingness to listen and learn, one from the opposite.
Elizabeth Sweeny Block is an associate professor of Christian ethics at Saint Louis University. She is writing a book on conscience, moral agency and social sin.
The Truth Beyond Ourselves
Professor Sweeny Block and I actually have differing assessments of the document from the Congregation for Catholic Education—but we do have points of commonality, similar to the necessity to hearken to experiences of gender variance, in addition to to science. We follow these points to different conclusions, nonetheless, so I would really like to make use of this response as a chance to explore why.
Professor Sweeny Block criticizes the C.C.E. document for specializing in “theories and beliefs” about gender, somewhat than the “lived experiences” of individuals. This bifurcation overlooks the incontrovertible fact that our experiences are refracted through the cultural frameworks on offer. That is something that gender theory gets right. Gender nonconformity just isn’t latest—just have a look at the saints, how often they thwarted convention—however the concept of subjective “gender identity” and a medicalized approach to gender incongruence are each historically novel, a part of a recently emergent paradigm that has come to profoundly shape our self-perceptions.
True accompaniment requires listening to each lived experiences and the frameworks that filter them. I agree with Professor Sweeny Block that the church needs to have interaction the dimension of non-public experience together with Scripture, tradition and reason. Where perhaps we diverge is that I might not place all of those at the identical level of authority. Every conscience, every human heart, needs formation. We should always be formed in line with God’s self-revelation, not vice versa. That is where I part ways from the gender theorists: Cultural frameworks can shape our perceptions of reality, yes, but reality nonetheless exists. There’s a ground of truth beyond ourselves, and there are good and bad frameworks of interpretation.
True accompaniment requires listening to each lived experiences and the frameworks that filter them.
Professor Sweeny Block is correct that the goal of gender theory just isn’t the dissolution of difference. More precisely—and the C.C.E. document recognizes this—gender theory is a project of denaturalization. The goal is to unmask what we commonly consider as natural and reveal it as all the time already social. In second-wave feminist theory, this happened with the norms and behaviors related to sex, and sometimes rightly so. Then, through the third-wave innovations of students like Judith Butler, this happened with sex itself. The sex binary, upon which the existence of our species depends, is now thought to be a social fiction somewhat than natural.
Professor Sweeny Block invokes the now common characterization of sex as a smattering of discrete and variable characteristics—a distortion that overlooks the incontrovertible fact that these characteristics are unambiguously arranged in line with two distinct procreative modalities in 99.98 percent of the population. Some sexual characteristics fall along a spectrum, that’s true. But sex because the totalizing structure of an organism is binary, and that’s true for all sexually reproducing species. The cultural norms attached to sex are variable. Sex itself is remarkably stable. The C.C.E. document could have elaborated on this point more clearly, but it surely does appropriately describe sex as a “structural determinant,” emphasizing the necessity to regard the totalizing structure of the body as a complete, not characteristics in isolation.
This fragmentary understanding of sex is itself, I might argue, already filtered through gender theory’s project of denaturalization. “Listening to science” and “listening to experience” can’t be neatly separated from an evaluation of the ideas which are implicitly, and all the time, mediating our narratives of self-understanding. – Abigail Favale
Revisiting Catholic Anthropology
Abigail Favale offers a really optimistic read of “Male and Female He Created Them,” made possible partly by connections she makes between this document and the writings of Pope Francis and his two predecessors.
But to ensure that Dr. Favale to see the great on this Vatican document, she necessarily turns away from the words of “Male and Female He Created Them.” Indeed, there may be some good happening within the church. As an illustration, Pope Francis has met with transgender individuals 4 times in recent months. In a letter to James Martin, S.J., about Father Martin’s outreach to L.G.B.T. communities, Francis encouraged a “culture of encounter,” which “enriches us with differences.” Nonetheless, it stays difficult for me to see this type of encounter or appreciation for differences present within the Congregation for Catholic Education’s document.
Dr. Favale identifies opposing realities that the church must preserve. First, there may be a difference between “the worldview of gender theory” and “a Catholic understanding of reality.” Moreover, the rejection of the framework of gender theory and certain ideas is distinct from the rejection of individuals, which isn’t appropriate.
I appreciate Dr. Favale’s concern for individuals with varied experiences, something not taken seriously in “Male and Female He Created Them,” and her pushback against rigid stereotypes. Yet the “Catholic way of seeing,” which didn’t arise from nowhere and has been influenced by contexts and cultures, can and must proceed to learn by experiences and in dialogue with secular theories.
Ideas have real consequences, they usually can harm and exclude.
Furthermore, ideas have real consequences, they usually can harm and exclude. Dr. Favale suggests more encounters between priests and transgender or gender-questioning parishioners—a vital step—but ideas matter to how people see themselves and the way welcome they feel. It is difficult to assume feeling genuinely invited into dialogue on the heels of a homily that presents a framework that discounts an individual’s lived reality.
As a substitute of asking transgender individuals to fulfill on our terms and fit into our paradigms, could we do more to take seriously their realities? Could the church step out of its comfort zone? Could the church adopt a real posture of humility and an openness to learning?
Theologians who take gender theory seriously can still accomplish that through a theological lens. We are able to learn from gender theory and still reject the concept that bodies, sex and gender are unimportant or that gender ought to be eradicated. The Anglican theologian Sarah Coakley has something to show us when she rightly warns that applications of gender theory might be distorted and potentially sinful, and yet theology that fails to make critical and discerning use of social science is way faraway from “actual lived religion.” As I noted in my opening remarks (Page 39), embodied difference matters, but difference needn’t be reduced to the male/female gender binary.
The givenness of the created order, that it’s a present from God, just isn’t rejected when one takes the concerns and lives of transgender individuals seriously. Indeed, transgender bodies are gifts from God.
Nonetheless, the givenness of creation doesn’t mean that gender, or human nature more broadly, is static, neither is the givenness of creation or human flourishing limited to physical bodies, essential as they’re.
Furthermore, what’s natural and given can’t be understood within the abstract but must necessarily attend to and draw from the experiences of all, including transgender individuals. St. Thomas Aquinas recognized that knowledge begins with experience. The ends or purposes of creation could also be generally known, but practical experiences—in conversation with Scripture and tradition—reveal still more information in regards to the human and what constitutes human flourishing. We’d like an anthropology, but we also must query Catholic anthropological claims about human nature and discern whether or not they proceed to carry true.
The laity and clergy alike do must walk alongside transgender, nonbinary and gender-questioning individuals, but our steps must be less firm and more informed by our own humility. – Elizabeth Sweeny Block