Pope decries LGBT

Official document denounces idea of transgender identity

THE Vatican has issued an official document rejecting the idea that people can choose or change their genders and insisting on the sexual “complementarity” of men and women to make babies.

The document, published during LGBT Pride Month, was immediately denounced by LGBT Catholics as contributing to bigotry and violence against gay and transgender people.

Advocacy group New Ways Ministry said it would further confuse individuals questioning their gender identity or sexual orientation and at risk of self-harm.

The text, Male and Female He Created Them, was intended to help Catholic teachers, parents, students and clergy address what the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education called an “educational crisis” in the field of sex education. It called for a “path of dialogue” and listening on the issue of “gender theory” in education.

But even priestly advocates for LGBT Catholics noted that the text appeared to have relied entirely on previous papal pronouncements, Vatican documents and philosophers and theologians.

“The real-life experiences of LGBT people seem entirely absent from this document,” said Reverend James Martin, a Jesuit priest who wrote a book on improving Catholic Church outreach to the LGBT community.

“We should welcome the congregation’s call to dialogue and listening on gender, and I hope that conversation will now begin.”

Jay Brown of the Human Rights Campaign – the largest LGBT-rights group in the US – said the Vatican’s stance “sends a dangerous message that anybody who experiences gender diversity is somehow less worthy”.

Pope Francis has repeatedly argued the position that people cannot choose their genders. But this newly released document represents the first attempt to put the Vatican’s position, first articulated fully by Pope Benedict XVI in a 2012 speech, into a comprehensive, official text.