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The Catholic Understanding of Human Anthropology

“Children know that their mothers and fathers love them, and they trust their guidance. Now children are told that their parents’ judgment about them should not be trusted — that parents may have been mistaken from birth about ‘who’ the child really is.”

Although not a Roman Catholic, as a Christian I affirm their view of body and soul integration. And with them I recognize the creational givens of “sexual identity” over and above “gender identity.”

Here is more about the Catholic understanding.

To understand why the Church warns about gender ideology, it is critical to examine the deceptive anthropology underlying gender ideology. Perhaps the easiest way to understand the anthropological claims made by gender ideology is to look at the “gender-affirming” or “transgender” resources widely used in schools, universities and popular culture to explain “who we are.” Colorful cartoonish graphics like the genderbread person or the gender unicorn depict androgynous figures with labels proposing new categories of identity. Lesson plans designed by activist organizations teach students the vocabulary and core concepts of this new belief system that conflicts with Christian anthropology.

Rather than recognizing the truth that each person, created by God as male or female, is a unity of body and soul, gender ideology claims “the person” is a random assortment of dimensions: “gender identity” (self-perception, regardless of the body), “gender expression” (how you present yourself to others), “sex assigned at birth” (a guess about your identity made by doctors and parents), sexual attraction or emotional attraction (feelings and desires), and anatomical parts (body parts that can be replaced at will). Each of these categories is typically represented as a “spectrum” or as fluid and changeable.

These graphics encourage the child to decide his identity for himself, using these categories to shape his understanding of “who he is.” According to gender ideology, the defining or core aspect of identity of the person is “gender identity.” Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools “LGBTQ inclusivity” program, for example, describes “gender identity” as “who you know yourself to be in your heart and mind” and teaches children that “our bodies do not determine our gender identity.” This directly contradicts the truth, known by reason and revealed by God, that each of us is created with a unity of body and soul, embodied as male or female. The Catechism of the Catholic Church uses the term “sexual identity” to describe embodiment as male or female and teaches that “everyone must acknowledge and accept his [or her] sexual identity” (No. 2333).

Children are taught to believe that because identity is self-defined, there is an infinite array of gender identities. In Portland’s public schools, for example, social emotional learning lessons (SEL) instruct children that there are as many different “gender identities” as there are stars in the sky. Every person has a “gender identity,” and only the individual child can say what his or her identity is. The child who declares a transgender identity must be believed and affirmed and cannot be challenged. According to gender ideology, it is normal to be “transgender” (an umbrella term for a person whose “gender identity” does not align with his body), just as it is normal to be “cisgender” (a person whose “gender identity” matches his body). This undermines the child’s natural knowledge of human nature, that human beings are embodied as either male or female, and in its place substitutes a new “binary” premised on the belief that some persons are born in the wrong body. In contrast, the Catholic Church teaches that the person is created at conception as a male or female person, with a unity of a human soul and either a male or female body. In other words, God creates you, uniting your soul with your male or female body.

But how does a child discern his or her “gender identity”? The child is taught to compare his or her own behavior and feelings to exaggerated stereotypes of what it means to be male or female. Interests, feelings and preferences are presented as reliable indicators of “gender identity,” while the sexed body is not…..

There’s more. So read the whole thing.

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Respecting our God-given nature

“What is true of creation as a whole is true of human nature in particular: there is an order in human nature that we are called to respect. In fact, human nature deserves utmost respect since humanity occupies a singular place in the created order, being created in the image of God (Gn 1:27). To find fulfillment as human persons, to find true happiness, we must respect that order. We did not create human nature; it is a gift from a loving Creator. Nor do we ‘own’ our human nature, as if it were something that we are free to make use of in any way we please. Thus, genuine respect for human dignity requires that decisions about the use of technology be guided by genuine respect for this created order.”

— “Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body,” March 20, 2023

Wisdom from Pope Francis

“It needs to be emphasized that ‘biological sex and the socio-cultural role of sex (gender) can be distinguished but not separated.’ … It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created.”

— Pope Francis, Amoris Laetitia, No. 56

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For The Good Of Our Families

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DSD’s and“Sex Assignment” – Podcast – Redux

Podcast Script

Apart from a Queer Theory saturated worldview, a worldview I briefly discussed in my last podcast, I can find only one physiological reason for why Gender Identity Activists propagandize in this way and why they say “sex is assigned” at birth. And that reason has to do with DSD’s or Disorders of Sexual Development (A categorization that Gender Activists want to relabel “Differences of Sexual Development”).

Let’s look at those for a few minutes.

Sometimes these disorders (I refuse to call them differences) result in the formation of two sets of sex organs, or an incomplete development of reproductive organs. They are sometimes caused by genetic mutations and at other times by chromosomal or hormonal defects.

But because we have people with ambiguous genitalia and chromosomal irregularities this is considered grounds for throwing the whole classification system up in the air and dispensing altogether with the male – female binary. As I outlined in my previous podcast, there are real world consequences to going down this path of eliminating the male – female sex binary as the overriding identifier of sex.

Unbelievably some prominent Medical Associations are playing along too. I think they have become politicized by radical Queer Theory Subjectivism. More about that in future podcasts.

I’m trying hard to be fair about this issue. So I don’t want to misrepresent Gender Ideologues. But in all my research I can find only one objective reason for why they say sex is assigned at birth. It’s the only reason why our grade school teachers were instructed to abandon the “biological sex” section of the Genderbread Person for the “sex assigned at birth” section of the Gender Unicorn. [See my previous podcast “Our Schools and Gender Ideology.”]

They hang their hat on DSD’s which occur in 1 out of 5000 births.1

That’s it! 

That’s the only thing that grounds their ideology in anything remotely biological and scientifically objective.  Everything else in their ideology is about the totally subjective lived experiences of the “disembodied” individual. Individual perception and desire are sacrosanct. Not to mention free floating. 

Here are some Disorders of Sexual Development (DSD’s).

  • Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) The most common DSD occurring in 1 out of 14,000 births is a recessive disorder caused by two parents who carry a faulty (mutated) gene which prevents the normal production of cortisol thus altering the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics of their child. This often leads to the virilization or masculinization of the female external genitalia producing obvious genital ambiguity. Internally these people develop and function as women.
  • Klinefelter syndrome: Instead of 46 chromosomes, someone with this syndrome has 47. They develop as males but with abnormal body proportions and enlarged breasts, infertility is common.
  • Turner syndrome: People with 45 chromosomes. Instead of having XX or XY they have only X chromosomes. They develop as infertile women because two X chromosomes are necessary for the normal development of ovaries. Causes numerous health and development problems, including but not limited to short stature, lymphedema, infertility, webbed neck, coarctation of the aorta, ADHD, amenorrhoea, and obesity.
  • Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome: “People with androgen insensitivity syndrome develop as normal-appearing but sterile women, lacking a uterus and oviducts and having internal testes in the abdomen.”
  • According to an article by Bonnie McCann-Crosby and V. Reid Sutton, “Disorders of Sexual Development,” in the journal Clinics in Perinatology 42 (June 2015): 403, a severe genetic mutation results in the testes never forming and therefore the body never masculinizes because of testosterone deficiency. These individuals develop as females who are infertile (because they lack a second X chromosome).
  • Ovotesticular disorder (also called true hermaphroditism) – A condition where an individual has both testicular and ovary tissue.
  • Mosaicism: People who develop from a single fertilized egg but because of a genetic mutation have a patchwork of genetically different cells. In other words two different sets of DNA, with some of the body’s cells being XX or a single X and some being XY. Klinefelter syndrome already mentioned is one kind of Mosaicism.
  • Chimera: When two different embryos combine early in a pregnancy. Again, some cells are XX and some cells have XY chromosomes. Fewer than 100 cases documented worldwide.

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Okay, after having waded through that, what should we conclude? These are disorders. Not differences. 

My brother was born with a cardio-vascular disorder which is why he died at the age of 21. His cardio-vascular system was incapable of working as designed and gave out way before the normal “expiration date.” Disorders of Sexual Development in almost all cases result in a short-circuiting of our reproductive system. It is a disorder. 

Gender Ideologues should stop using DSD’s as an excuse for saying the male-female binary is obsolete.

Finally, and here is where the “assigned at birth” label gets attached, in the past when doctors were confronted with an infant having one of these disorders they had to make a careful judgment as to which sex the child was most likely to be comfortable with as the child matured. And this was usually because of ambiguous genitalia.  Sometimes in the past, but not so much today, actual surgical intervention occurred to assist the infants future development. Occasionally the doctor would “assign” either a male or female path forward, depending on the doctor’s professional judgement. Birth certificate sex was therefore “assigned” in these exceptionally rare cases.

This is why Gender Activists use their “assigned at birth” “social construction” language.

Does that sound rational to you? Throwing out the male – female binary because a relatively low number of humans have one of these disorders?  A disorder which occasionally necessitates a sex “assignment” by a medical professional?   Does that sound reasonable to you. Does that non-binary world sound reasonable to you?  

It doesn’t to me.  

But it does if you want to fundamentally restructure society by tossing out all sexual norms, norms born out of biology and religious Truth.

Now of course most people are not agenda driven in this way. They just want to be considerate of what they regard as a “difference.” That’s completely understandable and loving. And we can still do that. We can still love people and embrace those with these disorders without buying into the radical social agenda being pushed on their behalf. 

And we can love people who are genuinely confused, who think it is possible and advisable to reject their biological sex.