Will the U.S. Bishops Help Donald Trump “Erase” Transgender People?

With President Donald Trump seeking to erase transgender people as a category, will the U.S. bishops be complicit in this egregious human rights violation or will they at last defend the trans community when it faces attacks?

Earlier this month, The New York Times reported on a leaked federal memo by which the Trump administration seeks to deny the existence of non-physical gender identity and thereby of transgender people as a recognized class. Rather, the Department of Health and Human Services’ memo states, gender is synonymous with assigned sex, is a male-female binary, is unchangeable, and is determined by genitalia (and genetic testing, if needed). The Department is seeking to make this understanding uniform across the federal government.

The trans community, and particularly trans women of color, remain quite vulnerable even after some legal protections were implemented under President Barack Obama and at state and local levels. The damage this new federal definition could cause is severe. Trans activist Brynn Tannehill summarized potential consequences in The Advocate:

“Taken together, the acts of removal of civil rights protections, nonrecognition of a class of people, purging them from civil service, and revocation of passports are extremely disturbing because they all have clear analogies to actions taken in Germany prior to 1939 to isolate and marginalize the Jewish population there.”

Against the Trump administration, trans advocates and allies launched the #WontBeErased campaign on social media which has been followed up with in-person actions. Many religious leaders have voiced their opposition to the memo, but members of the Catholic hierarchy have been silent.

To this point, most remarks and actions by church leaders regarding transgender issues have been quite negative. In 2017, Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap. and Bishop George Murry, SJ, applauded the Trump administration’s rescinding of Department of Education guidelines to protect transgender and gender non-conforming students. When those protections were previously released under President Obama, Archbishop George Lucas of Omaha and Bishop Richard Malone of Buffalo called them “deeply disturbing.” In addition, the director of the Minnesota Catholic Conference, which represents that state’s bishops, said a local education guide for taking care of trans students was the “exaltation of dictatorship.”

That same year, Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese of the Military Services, USA endorsed the Trump administration’s attempted ban on transgender members of the military. Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, president of the Pontifical Academy for Life, said at a Knights of Columbus-funded conference for bishops that “transgenderism [was about] the acquisition of greater power and the satisfaction of our own desires.”

In addition, church leaders and healthcare officials have been long-standing opponents of protections for transgender patients and promoted harmful conscience protections. Pastoral care issues have seen rigid, gendered dress codes imposed on youth as a barrier to sacramental reception and questions raised about whether trans people can be baptized.

But perhaps most telling and relevant is a 2017 interfaith letter signed by four Catholic bishops who head committees for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in which they deny the existence of the transgender experience and promote a false scenario about how gender is being taught to children as if it were a choice. The letter stated:

“We come together to join our voices on a more fundamental precept of our shared existence, namely, that human beings are male or female and that the socio-cultural reality of gender cannot be separated from one’s sex as male or female. . .Gender ideology harms individuals and societies by sowing confusion and self-doubt. The state itself has a compelling interest, therefore, in maintaining policies that uphold the scientific fact of human biology and supporting the social institutions and norms that surround it.”

These words are the theological basis for legal attempts now being made by Trump and his administration to erase transgender people as a recognized class. By endorsing gender complementarity and warning against “gender ideology,” the U.S. bishops have made themselves complicit in the suffering being inflicted against trans people (not to mention the LGBT community at large, and women). Such thinking and rhetoric must now be rejected and the damage it causes must be acknowledged. The trans community is owed an apology from the U.S. church. In this pivotal moment of determining whether the oppression of trans people in the United States will greatly increase or not, it is past time for the nation’s bishops to speak out and bear witness in defense of trans people’s lives and dignity.

Robert Shine, New Ways Ministry, November 1, 2018

6 replies
  1. Kris
    Kris says:

    Sadly but predictably, most of these bishops, had they been alive, and religiously prominent, two-thousand years ago would have called for the erasing of Jesus, too, on the ground that he failed to conform to their idelogical model of acceptable Judaism.

    Reply
  2. Mary Jo
    Mary Jo says:

    Of course the hierarchy will work with the present administration to erase transgender people. The reason the present occupant of the White House is there is because 56% of Catholics who voted, voted for him at the urging of the bishops. This is a justice issue and should not be supported by the Catholics of this country.

    Reply
  3. Ned Flaherty
    Ned Flaherty says:

    The headline “Will the U.S. Bishops Help Donald Trump ‘Erase’ Transgender People?” asks the wrong question.

    The proper question is “Will Donald Trump Help the U.S. Bishops ‘Erase’ Transgender People?”

    U.S. bishops have always: (1) opposed civil rights and human rights for transgender people; (2) claimed that people of transgender identity are merely suffering from mental illness; and (3) denied that transgender people even exist at all. Donald Trump’s crude stances are very late arrivals at the bishops’ permanent campaign to obliterate transgender people out of existence.

    The answer to the properly phrased question is yes, Donald Trump is helping the bishops to reach their goal, by turning America’s democracy into a Vatican theocracy.

    The best example is Trump’s recent re-writing of federal policy to deny science and instead replace it with the religious superstitions promulgated by the Vatican: the twin notions that every human is born as a cisgender heterosexual, and that everyone else is either mentally ill or simply doesn’t exist at all.

    Reply
    • PJ Johnston
      PJ Johnston says:

      “The headline “Will the U.S. Bishops Help Donald Trump ‘Erase’ Transgender People?” asks the wrong question. The proper question is “Will Donald Trump Help the U.S. Bishops ‘Erase’ Transgender People?”

      This is more-or-less what I was going to say too. Thank you for putting it so well.

      Reply
  4. Loretta
    Loretta says:

    I wholeheartedly agree with opinions of Kris and Mary Jo adding this comment. Their ignorance of determining gender based on genitalia is shown in their lack of knowledge of unisex persons. Which comes first, ignorance or fear? P.S. but many bishops are apparently okay with pedophila among their ranks.

    Reply
  5. John Hilgeman
    John Hilgeman says:

    Unfortunately, this erasure of transgender people goes all the way to the top, with Francis’ remarks about “gender theory.” Just another example of how ignorant and destructive the RC official doctrines on human sexuality are. One cannot base doctrines of morality on fiction, and expect them to be solid and sound.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *