On Transgender Day of Remembrance: Why Our Church Needs to Do More

Abigail Peralta

Today’s post is from Abigail Peralta, a transgender Catholic and parishioner at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Washington, DC, where he participates in the Young Adult Community and the LGBTQIA+ ministry. These reflections are drawn from personal experience and reflect the author’s personal views only.

During the month of November, our church prays for the dead and calls us to holiness. On this Transgender Day of Remembrance, an annual day set aside to remember transgender people who died as a result of violent actions or by suicide, I propose we honor the lives we remember today by answering the church’s call to remember the dead by exhorting our church to reconsider its policies, attitudes, and remarks about transgender people, which too often have the overall effect of legitimizing the bigotry that kills.

Our faith teaches us that the church touches “the suffering flesh of Christ in others” (Evangelii Gaudium, no. 24.)

Transgender people in the U.S. are overrepresented in this suffering: 78% have considered suicide at some point in their lives and 40% have attempted it, compared to just 13.2% and 2.4% in the general population, respectively. Since last year’s Transgender Day of Remembrance, 57 additional lives have been lost to suicide or other forms of violence. Meanwhile, support for restrictions on trans rights has grown, despite evidence linking such restrictions to victimization and suicidality. 

Many of our church’s leaders tacitly condone this violence by their approach to political engagement. A small handful of bishops are making efforts to better understand transgender lives, but the overwhelming majority appear particularly prone to a form of cafeteria Catholicism, wherein they take a fragmented approach of assessing each policy for superficial adherence to this or that Church teaching, instead of doing the hard work of discerning whether the underlying principles exhibit respect for the ‘infinite dignity’ of every human being. 

This approach is perfectly illustrated by the outgoing United States Conference of Catholic Bishops  (USCCB) president’s remarks on the Trump administration’s first wave of executive orders, stating that many provisions “will harm the most vulnerable among us,” but casting the anti-transgender order as “recognizing the truth about each human person as male or female” [E.O. 14168] in “a more positive light.” 

This executive order on gender seeks to strip gender identity protections from federal nondiscrimination laws, putting at risk protections that enable better access to healthcare, housing, and employment for transgender people. When church leaders speak so abstractly of ‘recognizing the truth about each human person as male or female’ and remain unmoved by the concrete suffering that associated policies can inflict, they manifest the ‘baneful Jansenist dualism’ that Pope Francis identified as a threat to our faith in God’s love and mercy (Dilexit Nos, no. 87). 

What frustrates me about such leaders’ attitude and response  is that our church already possesses a framework for a holistic approach to defending human dignity that encompasses all aspects of the person. Pope Francis’ last encyclical Dilexit Nos, rooted in centuries of tradition on the Sacred Heart of Jesus, highlighted how a return to the heart might succeed “in uniting and reconciling differing minds and wills” (no.28)  and  proposed that we “develop this means of reparation, which is, in a word, to offer the heart of Christ a new possibility of spreading in this world the flames of his ardent and gracious love” (no. 200). 

I know that our bishops are aware of its importance because the USCCB has just voted to consecrate the U.S. to the Sacred Heart in June 2026. Yet, in the same meeting, they approved revised directives that seek to ban gender-affirming care in Catholic hospitals, a decision that will likely have disastrous effects on the health and welfare of many transgender people. As we honor the lives we remember today, I believe we are all called to examine whether our Church’s witness, in practice, clears pathways for Christ’s love to spread or puts up obstacles. We must ask ourselves, “Do I have a heart?” (Dilexit Nos, no. 23)

Devotion to the Sacred Heart is directly connected to Catholic Social Teaching, for, as Pope Francis described, “It is by drinking of that same love that we become capable of forging bonds of fraternity, of recognizing the dignity of each human being” (Dilexit Nos, no. 217). As our church leaders contemplate the heart of Christ, I can only pray that each of them experiences a conversion that will inspire them to counteract the harmful effects of the current administration’s efforts to vilify and remove protections and access to services from transgender people—for as scriptures say, ‘whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen’ (1 John 4:20).

As lay people, we too have work to do. In parishes across the country, Catholics already serve the marginalized through ministries focused on food insecurity, immigration, housing justice, mental health, among many others. For example, parishes supporting the unhoused often find themselves serving transgender youth who were rejected by their families. Transgender people make up a disproportionate share of the populations our ministries serve. 

While LGBTQIA+ ministries can be powerful (I benefit immensely from my parish’s group), they are not always possible in every parish. But it is always possible to better welcome and center all the marginalized, including transgender people, within the ministries that already exist and in everyday parish life. We must make visible what should always be underneath any good work rooted in the heart of Christ.

By clearing pathways for Christ’s love to reach those suffering and increasingly at risk, our Church, clergy and laity together, can honor the lives we remember today as they deserve: with action, not words alone.

—Abigail Peralta, November 20, 2025