The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week adopted a directive banning Catholic hospitals from providing gender-affirming care to patients.
Because “Creation came before us and must be received as a gift,” we have an obligation to “protect our humanity,” which means, first of all, to “accept and respect what has been created,” says the directive adopted by the USCCB at a meeting in Baltimore this week.
The Washington Blade obtained a copy Thursday.
“Out of respect for human nature as a unity of body and soul, Catholic health services may not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim to alter rather than restore the fundamental order in the form or function of the human body,” the directive reads. “This includes, for example, certain types of genetic engineering that are not intended to be therapeutic, as well as interventions that aim to convert the sexual characteristics of the human body into those of the opposite sex (or to override the sexual characteristics of the human body).”
“In accordance with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes the service of vulnerable populations, Catholic health services and providers must ‘utilize all appropriate resources to alleviate the suffering of people experiencing gender nonconformity and gender dysphoria,’ employing only measures that respect the fundamental order of the human body and responding to all of their medical needs,” it added.
In 2024, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Faith condemns gender-affirming surgery and “gender theory.” The USCCB’s directive comes against the backdrop of continued attacks against the trans community by the Trump-Vance administration.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming medical interventions for minors.
Media reports earlier this month said the Trump-Vance administration would ban Medicaid reimbursement for medical costs for trans minors and seek to ban reimbursement through the Children’s Health Insurance Program for patients under 19. NPR also reported that the White House is considering blocking all Medicaid and Medicare funding to hospitals that provide gender-affirming treatment to minors.
“The directives adopted by the USCCB do more harm than good to transgender people,” Frances DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministries, a Maryland-based LGBTQ Catholic organization, said in a statement. “In a church that demands synodal listening and dialogue, it is embarrassing and even shameful that the bishops failed to consult transgender people who are finding that gender-affirming medicine improves their lives and their relationship with God.”
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