Church Must Be Patient, Serve Lovingly As Understandings of Gender Develop

“God made male and female, yes. But God made day and night, too, as well as dawn and dusk,” writes Nathan Schneider in a recent America article pushing back against Catholic denunciations of so-called “gender ideology.” He argues that the experiences of trans people have much to teach Catholics about gender and “the immensity of God’s creativity.”  

Schneider can relate to those who feel “shaken” by the increasingly public discussions of gender diversity in U.S. culture. After visiting Dominican Sister Luisa Derouen’s ministry among trans people, Schneider recalls that his “own sense of gender felt unstable in ways it never had before.” Some leaders, theologians, and politicians have responded to this sense of instability by doubling down on the gender binary. Schneider warns that “Easy clarity is not the way, in the long run, to live with our uncertainties.”

Schneider reveals how the term “gender ideology,” used first by Catholic thinkers and now increasingly among political conservatives, is a straw man created to have something to fight against. “The talk about gender ideology starts to seem like a denunciation without a referent,” he says. “Many are complaining about it, but it is hard to find anyone who actually believes or defends it.”

For example, the Synod on the Family claimed in its 2015 report that, according to gender ideology, “human identity becomes the choice of the individual, which can also change over time.” This supposed tenet of “gender ideology” is actually opposite to the experience of many trans people. Schneider shares the experience of his friend Quince, a trans man, who “never perceived his masculinity as a choice; he says he would have chosen to be a woman if he felt he could.” If anything, Schneider argues, queer experiences witness to gender as an innate gift. “They experience gender as given, too, just not in the way tradition expects.”

Another mischaracterization of “gender ideology” is its supposed disconnection between anatomy and gender. The ultra-conservative Heritage Foundation states that gender ideologists “deny the significance of bodily sex for personal identity,” whereas Schneider points out that the desire for gender-affirming care is born out of exactly that significance. “People who undertake gender-related medical interventions, such as hormone treatments and surgeries, accept the accompanying risks precisely because they understand their gender identity as tied to their bodies,” Schneider writes. “Rather than trying to violate a ‘natural order,’ these people often see themselves as trying to live in a deeper relationship to it.”

Ultimately, Schneider pushes back against the idea that queer experiences are the result of an “ideology.” “An ideology is an idol that keeps us from perceiving reality beyond what is already in our heads.” Schnieder contrasts this with maturity that allows us to “see past our ideologies, as well as our fears, in order to be open to whatever revelation may be unfolding among us.” Queer and trans individuals call the church toward that maturity, if only we would heed their call. Too often church leaders respond in fear and defensiveness, trying to “scold [them] out of existence” instead of “[taking] it as an opportunity to deepen the tradition.”

Schneider anticipates that some of the current conversation around gender will seem antiquated or irrelevant decades from now. He freely admits that society is currently in a stage of growing pains, and that perhaps nobody is getting it all right. “But I think the God of love wants us to love even when the waves of change are choppy,” he concludes. “I hope for a church that is curious before it is judge-y, that sits at table with someone and hears their story before rushing to say ‘sin no more.’”

Schneider draws from examples in the monastic tradition and the history of religious orders to argue that the church has the capacity to ride these waves of change. Examining the breadth of Catholic history, he says “one thing the church has long been good at is holding many kinds of paths for her people at once, places where they can live, struggle and grow.” 

“We are an old church, and we must be a patient one,” Schneider reminds Catholics. “While the church is patient, it must also serve people who cannot wait a few centuries to be listened to and loved.”

—Ariell Watson Simon (she/her), New Ways Ministry, December 14, 2023