EDUCATION AND GENDER: DIALOGUE. NO IDEOLOGY - EDUCATION ET GENDER. DIALOGUE, NO IDEOLIGIE

  IT - EN - ES - FR - PT

Vatican document on gender: Yes to dialogue, no to ideology

The Congregation for Catholic Education has published “Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender theory in education”. The new document is intended as an instrument to help guide Catholic contributions to the ongoing debate about human sexuality, and to address the challenges that emerge from gender ideology.

By Debora Donnini

The objective of the document — entitled "Male and Female He Created Them: Towards a path of dialogue on the question of gender in education” — is to support those engaged in the education of the younger generations to address “methodically”, in light of the broader horizon of education in love, the issues most debated today on human sexuality.

In particular, it is addressed to Catholic schools and to those who, inspired by a Christian vision, work in other schools; to parents, students, and staff; but also to bishops, priests, and religious, as well as ecclesial movements and associations of the faithful. The Congregation for Catholic Education, which prepared the text, speaks of “an educational crisis”, in particular on the themes of affectivity and sexuality, in the face of “challenges emerging from varying forms of an ideology that is given the general name ‘gender theory’, which 'denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman',” and considers them as “merely the product of historical and cultural conditioning.” Identity would then “become the choice of the individual, one which can also change over time “. The text speaks of an anthropological disorientation that characterizes the cultural climate of our time, contributing to “the destabilization of the family.” Quoting Amoris laetitia, the document says that, among other things, this ideology “leads to educational programmes and legislative enactments that promote a personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female”. This is the context of the new document, which aims to promote a methodology “based on three guiding principles” of listening, reasoning, and proposing.

Dialogue through listening, reasoning and proposing

In engaging in dialogue on the question of gender in education, the document makes a distinction “between the ideology of gender on the one hand, and the whole field of research on gender that the human sciences have undertaken, on the other”. Citing Pope Francis, it notes that “while the ideologies of gender claim to respond […] ‘to what are at times understandable aspirations’, they also seek ‘to assert themselves as absolute and unquestionable, even dictating how children should be raised’, and thus preclude dialogue”. Nonetheless, research has been carried out which seeks to deepen our understanding of the differences between men and women, and how those are experienced. The document therefore explains that “it is in relation to this type of research than we should be open to listen, to reason and to propose”.

In the brief historical survey of the beginnings of gender theory, the document notes that in the 1990s “it was suggested that one could uphold the theory of a radical separation between gender and sex, with the former having priority over the latter”. It continues, “Such a goal was seen as an important stage in the evolution of humanity, in which ‘a society without sexual differences’ could be envisaged”. Further, “in a growing contraposition between nature and culture, the propositions of gender theory converge in the concept of ‘queer’, which refers to dimensions of sexuality that are extremely fluid, flexible, and as it were, nomadic”. This, the document says, “culminates in the assertion of the complete emancipation of the individual from any a priori given sexual definition, and the disappearance of classifications seen as overly rigid”.

Points of agreement and criticisms

Nonetheless, the document goes on to point out “some positions that could provide points of agreement” within the framework of gender research, which have “the potential to yield growth in mutual understanding”. One area of possible agreement, it suggests, “is the need to educate children and young people to respect every person in their particularity and difference, so that no one should suffer bullying, violence, insults or unjust discrimination based on their specific characteristics (such as special needs, race, religion, sexual tendencies, etc.)”.

As another example, the document points out, “as a further positive development” the “values of feminity” found in contemporary reflections on gender.” In particular, it speaks of the willingness of women to dedicate themselves in a special way to human relationships, especially for the benefit of the weakest. Quoting St John Paul II, the document notes that women “exhibit a kind of affective, cultural and spiritual motherhood which has inestimable value for the development of individuals and the future of society”.

However, the document also highlights some “points of criticism”, noting, for instance, that “gender theory (especially in its most radical forms) speaks of a gradual process of denaturalisation, that is a move away from nature”. In this view, concepts such as “sexual identity” and “family” are based on “a confused concept of freedom in the realm of feelings and wants”.

The document later reflects on the “rational arguments” that clarify the centrality of the body as “an integrating element of personal identity and family relationships”. The human body, it maintains, “is subjectivity that communicates the identity of being.” This helps us understand “why the data of biological and medical science shows that ‘sexual dimorphism’” can be proved by science, as, for example, by the study of chromosomes.

This also recalls the importance of the dialogue between faith and reason.

Proposing a Christian anthropology

The third main section of the document offers the proposal that comes from Christian anthropology. “This is the fulcrum on which to support” an integral ecology of man. The document recalls the verse from Genesis, “male and female He created them”. It argues that human nature is to be understood in light of the unity of body and soul, in which the “horizontal dimension” of “interpersonal communion” is integrated with the “vertical dimension” of communion with God.

Turning to education, the document stresses the primary rights and duties of parents with regard to the education of their children — rights and duties which cannot be delegated or usurped by others. It also notes that children have the right to a mother and a father, and that it is within the family that children can learn to recognise the beauty of sexual difference.

Schools, for their part, are called to engage with the family in a subsidiary way, and to dialogue with parents, respecting also the family’s culture. It is necessary, the document says, to rebuild an “alliance” between family, schools, and society, which can “produce educational programmes on affectivity and sexuality that respect each person’s own stage of maturity regarding these areas and at the same time promote respect for the body of the other person.”

The path of dialogue: Transforming concerns and misunderstandings

The document “Male and Female He Created Them” concludes by saying that “the path of dialogue, which involves listening, reasoning and proposing, appears the most effective way towards a positive transformation of concerns and misunderstandings, as well as a resource that in itself can help develop a network of relationships that is both more open and more human”. In contrast, it continues, “although ideologically-driven approaches to the delicate questions around gender proclaim their respect for diversity, they actually run the risk of viewing such differences as static realities and end up leaving them isolated and disconnected from each other.”

The document also emphasizes the “legitimate aspirations of Catholic schools to maintain their own vision of human sexuality”, maintaining that “a democratic state cannot reduce the range of education on offer to a single school of thought”.

Finally, the document notes the importance for Catholic schools of taking “into consideration the age-group of the students to be taught”, and of treating “each person with respect”. This can be done, it says, “through a way of accompanying that is discreet and confidential, capable of reaching out to those who are experiencing complex and painful situations”. Every school, it says, should propose itself as “an environment of trust, calmness, and openness, particularly where there are cases that require time and careful discernment” in order “to provide a patient and understating ear, far removed from any unjust discrimination”.

VATICAN NEWS

 IT - EN - ES - FR - PT

UN - ONU - GENDER EQUALITY AND GENDER IDEOLOGY. PROTECTING WOMEN AND GIRLS

Statement by H.E. Archbishop Bernardito Auza
Apostolic Nuncio, Permanent Observer of the Holy See
At the Side Event entitled
“Gender Equality and Gender Ideology: Protecting Women and Girls”
United Nations, New York, 20 March 2019

Your Excellencies, Distinguished Panelists, Dear  Friends,

I am very happy to welcome you to this morning’s event on gender equality and gender ideology and the need to protect women and girls, which the Holy See is pleased to be sponsoring, together with the Heritage Foundation.

Each year the Economic and Social Council hosts the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) to promote, report on and monitor issues relating to the political, economic, civil, social and educational rights of women. When the CSW first began meeting in 1947 in Lake Success, New York, there was a clear understanding of what it meant to be a woman. Even though over the course of the subsequent 62 years, there have been various debates among women from different continents and backgrounds over the goals and rights of women and the best means to achieve them, everyone knew to whom they were referring when they spoke, for example, about gender equality, violence against women, girls’ education, or equal pay for equal work. Even as recently as 2011, when the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, also known as UN Women, was founded, everyone knew whom it was representing and whose cause it was seeking to advance: the approximately half of the human race born with the capacity for motherhood, with two X chromosomes, with particular physical, hormonal, and relational traits that distinguish them from the approximate other half of the human race, men.

That consensus has unfortunately been getting eroded due to the recent phenomenon of gender identity and gender ideology. Whereas before everyone knew what “woman” meant based on her bodily nature, now many proponents of gender ideology assert that bodily nature has nothing intrinsically to do with womanhood beyond how sex is “assigned” at birth. Womanhood, rather, is looked at as the way one thinks about oneself, or expresses oneself, and therefore, they argue, those who consider themselves women must be treated as women, regardless of biological nature at the cellular, endocrinological or reproductive levels, regardless of primary and secondary sexual characteristics, or other factors.

This way of looking at womanhood primarily as a self-identity independent of bodily considerations was raised at the beginning of this 63rd Session of the Commission on the Status of Women in the statement given by the LGBTI Core Group, delivered by the Permanent Representative of Norway, Ambassador Mona Juul. The Statement said that the LGBTI Core Group — an informal cross regional group of 28 Member States together with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Outright Action International — spoke explicitly about “transgender persons” whose “names and sex details in official documents do not match their gender identity or expression.” It said it “stands ready to work with all partners to ensure that all women and girls — no matter their sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and sex characteristics — have adequate and equal access to social protection systems, public services and sustainable infrastructure.”

The LGBTI Core Group was saying that the understanding of “women and girls” should be based on “gender identity or expression” rather than on their biological sex. This understanding of womanhood would likely have astonished the 15 original members of the CSW in 1947 and most of the delegates who have represented their governments and NGOs here each year since.
 Whereas 62 years ago, it was not necessary to ask the important preliminary question, “What is woman?,” because everyone everywhere had a clear and univocal understanding of what this meant, now, when that understanding is being challenged and many are seeking to stipulate a fundamental change in its meaning, the international community must ask it.

The reason is because so much depends on the answer, not only in terms of law, education, economy, health, safety, sports, language and culture, as we will hear about today from our speakers — Mary Hasson, Emilie Kao, Monique Robles and Ryan Anderson — but also in terms of basic anthropology, human dignity, human rights, marriage and family, motherhood and fatherhood, and the cause of women, men, and especially children. To substitute gender identity or expression for biological sex has enormous ramifications in all of these areas and for that reason we must, with courtesy and compassion, ask the perhaps uncomfortable questions because the answers matter.

Pope Francis, while emphatically encouraging Catholics and all people of good will to support, welcome, accompany and love all those whose gender identity does not match their biological sex, to affirm their human dignity and defend their fundamental human rights to be free of violence and unjust discrimination (October 2, 2016), at the same time has been very clear about the dangers to individuals and society flowing from gender ideology.

He says that the anthropological underpinnings of gender ideology, by denying the “difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman,” by promoting a “personal identity and emotional intimacy radically separated from the biological difference between male and female,” ultimately makes human identity “the choice of the individual” and undermines the “anthropological basis for the family.” It is “one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life,” he continues, “and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality.” We are called, he emphasized, “to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created” (Amoris Laetitia, 56). Our sex, just like our genes, our race, our age, and other natural characteristics, are objective givens, not subjective choices.

In his encyclical on Care for our Common Home, Laudato Sì’, which has become perhaps the most commonly cited papal document in U.N. history since its 2015 release in anticipation of the Paris Agreement, he said, “Acceptance of our bodies … is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift, … whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology. Moreover, valuing one’s own body in its femininity or masculinity is necessary if I am going to be able to recognize myself in an encounter with someone who is different.” He added elsewhere, “The complementarity of man and woman …  is being questioned by the so-called gender ideology in the name of a more free and just society,” and stressed, “The differences between man and woman are not for opposition or subordination, but for communion and generation” (June 8, 2015). Rather than leading to a more free and just society, in other words, gender ideology hinders communion and generation between men and women. It’s a “step backwards,” because “the removal of [sexual] difference in fact creates a problem, not a solution” (April 15, 2015).
 When the natural, complementary duality of man and woman is called into question, the very notion of being — what it means to be human — is undermined. The body no longer is a defining element of humanity. The person is reduced to spirit and will and the human being almost becomes an abstraction until one discerns what nature one is or chooses what gender one wants to be. Pope Francis is particularly concerned about gender ideology being taught to children, so that boys and girls are encouraged to question, at the earliest ages of existence, whether they are a boy or girl and are told that gender is something one can choose (July 27, 2016). He has also expressed concern about cultural pressure, what he terms “ideological colonization,” being placed on countries, and cultures and individuals who resist this new and indeed radical anthropology.

So today at this event, we’re concerned with big and important questions about what it means to be human, what it means to be a woman, what is the best way to treat with compassion those whose self-identity does not correspond to their biological sex, how we should respond to challenges to impute the category of gender identity into legal protections based on sexual identity, and, within the Commission on the Status of Women, how best to protect and advance the cause and equality of women and girls.
 I thank you for coming and joining the conversation.

GENDER 

 

GENDER IDEOLOGY HARMS CHILDREN

   

The American College of Pediatricians urges healthcare professionals, educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts – not ideology – determine reality.

    1. Human sexuality is an objective biological binary trait: “XY” and “XX” are genetic markers of male and female, respectively – not genetic markers of a disorder. The norm for human design is to be conceived either male or female. Human sexuality is binary by design with the obvious purpose being the reproduction and flourishing of our species. This principle is self-evident. The exceedingly rare disorders of sex development (DSDs), including but not limited to testicular feminization and congenital adrenal hyperplasia, are all medically identifiable deviations from the sexual binary norm, and are rightly recognized as disorders of human design. Individuals with DSDs (also referred to as “intersex”) do not constitute a third sex.

    2. No one is born with a gender. Everyone is born with a biological sex. Gender (an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female) is a sociological and psychological concept; not an objective biological one. No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child’s subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as “feeling like the opposite sex” or “somewhere in between” do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women.....

Read: GENDER IDEOLOGY

GENDER DYSPHORIA IN CHILDREN - American College of Pediatricians: STOP INTERVENTIONS!

This Debate Concerns

 More than Science

FIRST DO NO ARM!

     

Gender dysphoria (GD) of childhood describes a psychological condition in which children experience a marked incongruence between their experienced gender and the gender associated with their biological sex. When this occurs in the pre-pubertal child, GD resolves in the vast majority of patients by late adolescence. 

    Currently there is a vigorous, albeit suppressed, debate among physicians, therapists, and academics regarding what is fast becoming the new treatment standard for GD in children. This new paradigm is rooted in the assumption that GD is innate, and involves pubertal suppression with gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH) agonists followed by the use of cross-sex hormones—a combination that results in the sterility of minors. 

      A review of the current literature suggests that this protocol is founded upon an unscientific gender ideology, lacks an evidence base, and violates the long-standing ethical principle of “First do no harm.” Gender Dysphoria in Children: This Debate Concerns More than Science.........

      Ethics alone demands an end to the use of pubertal suppression with GnRH agonists, cross-sex hormones, and sex reassignment surgeries in children and adolescents. 

      The College recommends an immediate cessation of these interventions, as well as an end to promoting gender ideology via school curricula and legislative policies. 

     Healthcare, school curricula and legislation must remain anchored to physical reality. 

     Scientific research should focus upon better understanding the psychological underpinnings of this disorder, optimal family and individual therapies, as well as delineating the differences among children who resolve with watchful waiting versus those who resolve with therapy and those who persist despite therapy.......

GENDER DYSPHORIA IN CHILDREN