Catholics Stand Up for Science and Gender

As I wrote yesterday for Insight, science is undergoing its most severe crisis in centuries. Not at the hands of the churches, as so many internet atheists like to fantasise, but from a sustained ideological assault from within.

Unto the breach has stepped none other than the Catholic Church — on the side of science.

Catholic schools have been strongly advised not to assist in ­efforts to affirm gender transitions in students through the use of drugs or surgical interventions and that “a human being’s sex is a physical, biological reality”.

The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference will advise schools that, for the vast majority of children and adolescents, gender ­incongruence is a psychological condition through which they will pass safely and naturally with supportive psychological care.

The guidance, to be issued on Tuesday, urges Catholic schools to avoid assisting in the issue of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones or surgery to limit possible infertility, “unnecessary damage” and “future possibilities for healthy human growth”.

All of this is well supported by the best available evidence. It’s science.

And it’s up against a virulently anti-science dogma.

The guidance voices grave concerns over an affirmation-based approach to students experiencing gender ­dysphoria and instead steers educators to a “biopsychosocial model” based on research showing a high correlation between “childhood gender incongruence and family dynamics”.

“In this model, practitioners promote ongoing psychological support for the child or young person through engaging with families,” the guidance says. “By discovering the child’s and family’s stories, practitioners are able to understand the gender variance felt by the child or young person within the context of family and their domestic environment.”

The latter are especially important to note. Almost completely bypassed by the “affirmation” model is that gender dysphoria is almost always just another symptom of complex psychological issues. Not all are fully understood, perhaps, but it’s well known that the child’s relationship with the opposite-sex parent is a key influence, as well as — especially in the explosion of previously rare gender dysphoria among teenage girls — the devastating impact of social contagion. Repressed homosexuality is also often noted.

“Research data strongly suggests that, for the vast majority of children and adolescents, gender incongruence is a psychological condition through which they will pass safely and naturally with supportive psychological care,” the guidance states. “Studies quote between 80 to 90 per cent of pre-pubescent children who do not seem to fit social gender expectations are not gender-incongruent in the long term.”

Whatever the causes, the best treatment is clear: psychological support through the storms of adolescence will almost always see the ship of a child’s body and psyche steered intact into well-adjusted adulthood. Resorting as a first course to drastic pharmaceutical and surgical interventions — or, to put it bluntly, chemically and surgically castrating children — is ideologically-driven bastardry.

Catholic school leaders are told to recognise that society has “widely adopted the belief that each person’s innermost concept of themselves determines their gender identity”. But they are warned these recent changes were “in conflict with the Catholic understanding of creation, in which every person is created good and is loved unconditionally as they are”.

Not just with the Catholic understanding, but with basic biological science. More importantly, the Church is pointing out that loving someone doesn’t mean catering to their every childhood whim. Sometimes, even the most loving parents have to put their foot down.

The document comes with some eminently sensible recommendations for dealing with the gender fad.

It makes no recommendations that would result in students being expelled because of their gender identity.

Catholic schools are encouraged to cater to the needs of students experiencing gender incongruence, a term recommended for use by educators over the term “transgender”.

The document recommends that schools provide unisex toilets or a change room area not aligned to biological sex to increase safety and options for vulnerable students. It also proposes to offer “flexibility with uniform expectations” to cater to the diversity of the student body.

However, all school documentation is to record students’ biological sex at enrolment. The guidance notes that “it may be lawful” to exclude a student from single-sex competition if they are over the age of 12 where the “strength, stamina or physique of competitors is relevant.”

The Australian

It’s 2022, and the Catholic Church is defending scientific truth against an onslaught of irrationality from the academy. Such are the times we live in.