In June, the Vatican released "Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education," its first extensive statement on transgender identity. While including a call for love and respect, the document rejects the idea that gender is distinct from biological sex. A transgender identity, the document asserts, seeks to "annihilate the concept of nature."
Given the Vatican's previous statements, the document did not come as a complete surprise. The Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the office responsible for safeguarding and promoting church law, once published a treatisethat labeled homosexuality "intrinsically disordered" and a "moral evil." Pope Francis, speaking to bishops in Poland in 2016, expressed shock that "today children – children! – are taught in school that everyone can choose his or her sex. Why are they teaching this?" He called such "terrible" lessons an "ideological colonization."
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