The Strawman of “Gender Theory” in the Vatican’s New Document
Fr. Daniel Horan
Earlier today, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released a new document on human dignity, titled Dignitas Infinita, which included sections on gender identity and gender transitions. Bondings 2.0 will feature reactions to the document throughout this week.
The following initial commentary is from contributor Fr. Daniel P. Horan, OFM, a Professor of Philosophy, Religious Studies and Theology and Director of the Center for the Study of Spirituality at Saint Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana. A columnist for the National Catholic Reporter, he is the author or editor of more than fourteen books, including Catholicity and Emerging Personhood: A Contemporary Theological Anthropology.
The recent declaration Dignitas Infinita, published today by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), gives the impression in title and purpose that it seeks to reaffirm and defend the universal dignity and value of human personhood. Indeed, according to an introductory note by the dicastery’s prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Latin title Dignitas Infinita comes from Pope John Paul II’s teaching that human dignity can be understood as “infinite.” This is, on its face, a very good thing, but this declaration fails to live up to its claim to affirm and support the ”infinite dignity” of all people.
Specifically, the document misunderstands and misrepresents both the scholarly and scientific work in the areas of sexuality and gender. Moreover, like previous church documents on sexuality and gender, it once again ignores the experiences of actual persons who do not conform to the church’s conceptualization of gender as only male or female. I offer the following points as an initial reaction to the text.
First, Cardinal Fernández writes in his introductory preface that the five-year-long work on this document sought to “take into account the latest developments on the subject in academia.” However, for all its talk about “theory,” the text fails to directly engage any specific theorist, philosopher, theologian, or other scholar who works on the subject of gender ostensibly under consideration here. Not a single citation points to any source this text intends to critique.
Instead of accounting for real research, this document constructs a strawman called “gender theory,” whose tenets represent no actual theory or study with which I am familiar. The vagueness of the concept is presented at once as a catch-all and an ominous threat, which serves the purpose of establishing a boogeyman to be feared but does little to advance any real dialogue or understanding.
Rather strikingly, this DDF document creates its own original “gender theory” according to the patchwork of concepts it weaves in paragraphs 56 to 59. Just like the adage of the caricature of “God” that both atheists and theists do not believe in and can reject, the Frankenstein’s monster called “gender theory,” created by the DDF, is something I also find problematic and incoherent. It should be expunged.
Second, there is an inexplicable confusion throughout this document between sexuality and gender. For example, paragraph 55 draws on Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetetia and the Catechism to affirm church teaching against discrimination of gay and lesbian persons, calling for respect for all persons “regardless of sexual orientation.” And then, in the opening line of paragraph 56, the text says: “At the same time, the Church highlights the definite critical issues present in gender theory,” bringing these two concepts together in a way to suggest they are directly linked or even interchangeable. This suggests that the authors of this document do not understand even the basics of human sexuality, sex, sexual orientation, or any facets of gender.
Third, as noted above, this document fails to recognize the complexity and range of gender-affirming treatments and therapies for trans and nonbinary people. A whole paragraph (no. 60) is dedicated to “sex change,” which implies that the DDF document authors are not considering the whole panoply of medically and psychologically prescribed and supervised treatments and therapies available. What is, again vaguely, referred to as “sex change” seems to presume medical surgical intervention, which is in fact only one way that some trans and nonbinary persons seek gender-affirming care, and always after a long period of discernment and medical consultation.
Other gender-affirming care outside of surgical intervention includes hormone therapy or using pronouns that align with their gender, among many others. That this section acknowledges the reality of intersex individuals (without using that term), and allows for certain medical treatments for such persons, is a good thing. But the final line of this section reinforces a gender essentialism, claiming that any “sex change” procedures do not, in fact, change the sex someone was assigned at birth.
Finally, one thing remains glaringly true about how this document addresses transgender and nonbinary persons: there is absolutely no evidence that the document’s authors consulted actual gender diverse people, whom this part of the document most directly impacts. This omission is a persistent limitation in ecclesial texts, whether at the diocesan or Vatican levels, and it would seem to baldly contradict the intended claim of this document to affirm the “infinite dignity” of all human persons.
In truth, this document could have been a lot worse. It could have been even more dehumanizing, as many of the diocesan statements in the United States about transgender and nonbinary people have been in recent years. Read with a hermeneutic of generosity, I take Cardinal Fernández’s desire to (eventually perhaps) engage “the latest developments on the subject in academia” as a sign that the conversation is not over nor definitively settled. And this hope is further supported by the fact that, in order for such a definitive claim to be made, it would require direct teaching by the Pope himself, and not a declaration by a Vatican dicastery. Clearly, however, much work remains to be done.
–Fr. Daniel P. Horan, April 8, 2024
Fr. Horan has raised very important lacks in this document.
The complexity of sexuality, and this document’s lack of recognition of the absence of choice in one’s experience of his/her/their sexual experience, leads to conclusions that fail to address the reality of many persons’ lived sexual experience.
Thank you for this. It helps me to consider the document with more charity and patience than I would have otherwise been able to.
Fully agree with Daniel more work needs to be done, in fact it seems a little pointless on transgender issues.
Thank you, Father Horan, for your generosity of spirit regarding this document. I am the mother of a trans adult who is happily married to a trans adult. I am the only remaining practicing Catholic in my family of six, mostly because of the rejection my trans child experienced from other Catholics. I am holding on by my fingernails, so I’m grateful for your and Father Jim Martin’s and others’ examples of faith and compassion and constancy in the face of ignorant documents like this. They don’t make it easy.
Valerie, I am that adult trans woman in my family and I keep on falling for the pronouncements that seem to favor trans folks, but, loose all faith and confidence as I read this and other Vatican documents which destroy the hope. My priest has told me to “forget those Vatican pharisees.” I have every right and duty to live as the authentic me. Fr Horan is my new scholar hero.
Very well-stated and astute observations. And first time I’ve heard of a “hermeneutic of generosity”! We should all use that method of interpretation more often .
I was formally kicked out of the church 27 years ago for being gender variant. I returned to it four years ago and it wasn’t even on my plan. For the next four years I had to stay under the radar and the only thing I was allowed to do was sing in the choir. I upset my pastor who told me recently he was not happy. I told a lot of people about me and then when Pope Francis wrote his statement that people like me were “the worst danger“ Anne and an “Ugly ideology,” and then this today. I’ve had it! I will not again, ever again, set foot in the Catholic Church because it is hypocritical And I’ve suffered enough persecution at the hands of church people.
I would honor this missing the point Vatican statement the same way the majority of straight people observe Paul VI’s Humanae Vite from 1968. Where is the Vatican’s wrath about what happened to how few babies are in Catholic families now. As a joke of the day said – he doesn’t play the game he doesn’t get to write the rules.
Peace.
Thank you for your thoughtful, compassionate response to this document. I would also like to see more science/education on this topic filtering over to the Vatican. I do not believe this document has done anything to make trans people safer in church or society and this concerns me deeply.
ANYTHINK that excludes human beings who are made in the very image and likeness of GOD cannot be what we Believe and ACCEPT. Done, Over, I am tired of the EXclusions with not a word that makes sense. GOD as a VERB is ACTION and he LOVES EVERYONE
UNENDING. THANK YOU.
Amen! When the DDF cannot name a single advocate of the stance they reject, nor deign to talk with an of the actual human beings involved, another agenda must be at work. E.g., one effect of “sex is that assigned at birth by assessment of genitalia, (and so also is the sex on one’s baptismal certificate) is fixed, binary, and unchangeable” is to identify, define and exclude all those labeled as girls from any leadership roles in the official church. If they admitted any ambiguity, the framework that justifies the second-class status of girls and women would crumble.
That thought about girls and women entered my head too when I read the document. Furthermore, my research suggests that there are more girls assigned female at birth who end up identifying as non-binary. Girls suffer badly in their teens and their plight is not fully understood and exacerbated by both medicine and especially the church.
Amen: twice. Thanks to Daniel Horan for pointing out the simple but corrupt use of “straw x/y/z”. And thanks to Lisa Fullam for pointing out the structure beneath: oh, imagine just that the earth is round and goes around the sun: the heavens (and we in Rome with it) would collapse. Surely, fear is the curia’s best friend… (courtesy John Cale).
Allow me to assess this… Document and its authors in the words of a better writer:
“…a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.
They’re is nothing but condemnation here. I fully expect to be driven out for refusing to repent for the act of existing.
Fr. Horan offers a solid critique of the document. I would take issue with only point: he sees the mention of intersex people as positive. I feel that it is further evidence of an antiquated world view. Surgery has historically been used on intersex people as a way to “fix” them and force them into the gender binary before they are even given a choice. If an intersex person comes to understand that they want surgery, great, but I don’t think that’s what the document meant.
Agreed. Most (actually all that I’m familiar with) intersex advocates are strongly against infant genital surgeries as it has caused a lot of pain and trauma. So this shows that the Vatican has not spoken with any trans people or even intersex people.
From the Vatican’s perspective, speaking with LGBTQ+ folks would be counterproductive to the process of composing and issuing “Dignitas Infinita”. The latter seeks to name and excoriate from DDS perspective ‘enemies of human dignity’ – not propose pastoral responses. The ‘individual’ would only complicate the goal of proclaiming loud and clear.
Thanks. I expected the Cardinal to start on Wikipedia starting with basic scientific data day by day to the 8th week reflecting female base for everyone, no binary base, the percentage of survivors to birth when a human person exists.
I still need every clergymen to explain where and how he gets his nipples and what is their purpose. Or why would Wikipedia is wrong. Joe S
The first thing I did when I read the document was look at the footnotes. As I believe Fr. Horan and others have observed, all of the notes are self-referential to other papal or ecclesial texts. Rather than consult with and listen to not only actual trans and gender diverse people, but also scholars and researchers from the worlds of academic theology, psychology, sociology or medicine, the DDF seems to be listening only to itself. So much for the “listening, synodal church” that Pope Francis has been leading us into! If that weren’t enough, the immediate reference to “sexual orientation” in the section entitled “Gender Theory” is further evidence that the authors — learned as they may be — have not the faintest understanding of what these terms have come to mean over the past decades. Yes, there are some good things in this document in its unequivocal reiteration of the dignity of all persons. It falls short, however, when it comes to respecting the inherent dignity of God’s LGBTQ+ children. I pray for the day when all God’s children will truly be listened to and welcomed formally in the Church for who they/we are.