Pope Francis himself has modeled this attentiveness to the dignity and fragility of transgender people, not just by making clear they can be baptized and be godparents (in other words, fully members of the People of God), but also by supporting those who minister to them, like Sister Mónica Astorga and Sister Jeannine Gramick. But most of all, it is the graciousness of the pope’s own outreach to trans people directly that has touched and edified, especially his bond with the trans women of a seaside town in Italy.
But compassionate attentiveness does not in and of itself resolve difficult questions. Is gender dysphoria a chromosomal variant or a psychological issue? “Dignitas Infinita” does not get into that; nor does it deal with the therapeutic answers to dysphoria. It does make clear that attempts to “change sex” fail to respect and accept the order of creation we have been given, yet it notes the possibility of needing to “resolve” genital abnormalities evident at birth or that develop later. But such a medical procedure, the document says, “would not constitute a sex change in the sense intended here.”
Sexual difference—the male-female polarity—is “foundational,” says D.I., for it is part of God’s gift to humanity in creating us male and female. In separating biological sex from the socio-cultural category of gender, which is denied any innate connection to anatomy and reduced to a social construction, gender theory envisages a society which has eradicated the male-female difference.
The desire to be rid of that difference is to reject the God-givenness of creation itself. It is to seek self-determination apart from the truth of that creation, the “age-old temptation to make oneself God, entering into competition with the true God of love revealed to us in the Gospel.” Only by recognizing and acknowledging the male-female “difference in reciprocity” can each of us discover our true identity—and therefore our true dignity. Is any of this surprising or wrong? It is certainly not a critique directed at those suffering gender dysphoria, for dysphoria does not deny the male-female polarity.
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Austen Ivereigh is a British writer and biographer of Pope Francis. His most recent book is “First Belong to God: On Retreat with Pope Francis” (Loyola Press, 2024).
With thanks to Outreach, where this article originally appeared.
