Male and Female, He Created Them

06-19-2022Pastor's CornerVery Rev. Robert J. Deehan, VF

I was informed recently of an event that will take place at the Duxbury Free Library on Saturday, June 25 (4 – 5 pm), which is eliciting some alarm and questions from parishioners about the Catholic Church’s position on such events. It’s a Drag Queen Story Hour, and is described this way on the DQSH website: “DQSH is just what it sounds like—drag queens reading stories to children in libraries, schools, and bookstores. DQSH captures the imagination and play of the gender fluidity of childhood and gives kids glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models. In spaces like this, kids are able to see people who defy rigid gender restrictions and imagine a world where people can present as they wish, where dress up is real.”

Exposing young children to “unabashedly queer role models” who “defy rigid gender restrictions” on one level may seem harmless while it promotes acceptance of people who are different. However, it has the potential to lead impressionable young minds into thinking that they can freely choose to present as a boy or girl, regardless of their biological sex (male or female). In this scenario, one’s human identity is seen as a choice based on subjective experience. Unfortunately, this gender ideology is a fallacy, which is being promoted to validate a problematic agenda while, at the same time, causing harm to vulnerable people. For example, sadly, we’ve seen in recent years a dramatic increase in the numbers of young people being diagnosed with what’s called, gender dysphoria – a relatively new diagnosis (2013), that characterizes a person’s distress over an identity at odds with their biological sex as pathological, but validates the “identity” as normal. So now, the recommended “fix” is to help the person change their gender using social, medical or surgical interventions to “feminize” or “masculinize” the body’s appearance to relieve their distress – all this at a vulnerable time in their sexual development. Tragically, a great many of these young people presenting with gender dysphoria have other underlying mental and emotional problems. Only in a very small percentage of individuals with a Disorder of Sexual Development/Intersex condition, which develops in the womb, is it acceptable to use medical or surgical interventions to restore the body’s healthy functioning. The Church teaches that authentic compassion affirms the person’s dignity as a son (male) or daughter (female) of God and helps the person “accept his (or her) sexual identity” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2333). Gender ideology denies God’s plan for the human person by rejecting the significance of sexual difference and the person as a unity of body and soul, a concept opposed to faith and reason. If you’d like to learn more about the Church’s teaching on these matters, visit the Person and Identity Project website: www.personandidentity.com, which has been the major source of this information. Another helpful resource is the Vatican document: “Male and Female He Created Them” Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education - Congregation for Catholic Education (Vatican City 2019): https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/ccatheduc/documents/rc_con_ccatheduc_doc_20190202_maschio-e-femmina_en.pdf.

God bless you!

Fr. Bob