In Theory: Pope Francis takes on gender theory

While saying priests should never turn away transgender Catholics, Pope Francis this month lashed out at what he called the “nasty” tendency of schools to “indoctrinate” students with the idea that gender can be changed or chosen, the Associated Press reports.

“It’s one thing if a person has this tendency and also changes sex,” Francis said. “It’s another thing to teach this in school to change mentalities. This is what I call ‘ideological colonization.’”

As an example, Francis decried donors who condition their support for schools that they use textbooks that promote gender theory, which he said was one of the sources of a “world war against marriage.”

Q. What do you think about Pope Francis’ comments? Is gender theory the threat that he makes it out to be?

If the Pope is referring to teaching gender theory as a threat to marriage, he must mean that the only goal of marriage is the first commandment to Adam and Eve to “be fruitful, multiply and fill out the land.”

However, the Hebrew Scriptures, also in Genesis, point to another possibility for parenting, that of a non-DNA type. Joseph, in his second dream, refers to mother and father as bowing down to him. Jacob, infuriated, speaks how you dare speak to your mother that way. Rachel is long dead. Who is Jacob speaking of? Leah of course. Here the Scriptures, the divine guide for families, shows us that creation is not the only way to be a good parent. Caring and loving an orphaned or abandoned child does! So, if a transgender person, who has made a positive effort to find his or her true self but cannot procreate decides to marry, let the couple adopt.

We are commanded in the Book of Deuteronomy, chapter 6:7, “Make an impression on your children and speak of them about it (it being love of God and each other).” Loving who you are will help you better love others. Being confused and frustrated with yourself helps no one to love.

B’ahava (with love),

Rabbi Mark Sobel
Temple Beth Emet
Burbank

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Is “gender theory” a threat? “Gender theory” is just one particular manifestation of the larger errant idea that man can change what God has decreed. For example, God has revealed that he alone is divine. Man vainly makes idols. God urges us to seek him first for our ultimate good. Man vainly seeks ultimate good in power, possessions and pleasures instead of him.

Our gender is assigned by God and is unchangeable. Genesis 1:27 says “God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” This passage teaches distinct gender identity irrevocably assigned by God. Our God-given gender identity is woven into our deepest genetic identity. While clothing, hairstyle and plastic surgery may alter our exterior appearance, our God-given DNA cannot be changed. It will always undeniably identifiable which gender we are.

Deuteronomy 22:5 further enlightens us that we are not to externally change our gender appearance: “A woman shall not wear man’s clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman’s clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God.” Yes, fellow Bible scholars, this is Old Testament and not New Testament, and yes, this was revealed in the Law of Moses and not from the lips of Jesus. But morality does not change because it is rooted in our unchangeable God. Moses also revealed that theft, murder and adultery were wrong in the Old Testament age and they as well are wrong in the New Testament age too.

So, how should the church respond to this “threat”? We should continue to focus on the most important issue: the salvation of the lost through proclaiming faith in the blood of Jesus Christ shed for the full payment of all of our sins, whichever sins they may happen to be. We should love sinners as Jesus did, and not attack them, realizing that we were saved from the same stock. And we should never compromise our proclamation of Scripture, for it is only the truth that will set people free from captivity to deception, depravity and a culture of denying what God has eternally decreed.

Pastor Jon Barta
Burbank

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The relationship between Catholicism, indeed most religions, and gender identification is so backwards. The latter is something genetically and biologically predetermined, irrespective of choice. The former is something chosen devoid of concrete proof or evidence. Yet, the former attempts to dictate what the latter does and what rights are accorded people based on their very identity.

When religious groups are persecuted because others believe differently and attempts are made to deny them equal rights, hackles are raised and foul is called. Yet, the very same religious groups think they can decide another’s fate based on their mistaken belief of what constitutes sin. If you consider something a sin, don’t do it. If it’s something that hurts others or society, work to stop it. But, in this case, identifying as LGBTQ and living a lifestyle true to your own identity, not only does none of those things but serves to create a more loving and inclusive society. I don’t care what your holy book says.

What bothers me even more is that homosexuality is considered a sin by some simply because the Bible says so. There is no proof, no explanation, no reasoning anywhere in the text. So, gay and trans youth are hurt, loving couples are being denied equal rights, children are taken from loving homes because of a few sentences with null to back them up. I could at least have some modicum of sympathy for the pope’s misguided position if there was an ounce of “here is why this is sinful.” But, if it’s just because “my holy book says so”, that’s just insulting to the millions of people who have alternative gender identities.

The pope is right that gender cannot be “picked and chosen and changed.” But, he doesn’t get to decide what gender means to each individual. Gender is not as simple as male and female and when someone is trans, it is not something they just picked or chose. It is who they are, how they feel and how they were born. Even if it wasn’t; if it indeed was a choice, what business is it of the pope’s, someone who chose his belief system?

I don’t care whether the pope blesses trans or not. Putting him on a pedestal for compassion toward gays is premature because he, and his religion, still consider them sinners and therefore, unequal. I do, however, care whether generations of youth are taught to be open-minded, tolerant and accepting of all humans or whether they are inculcated with religious absolutism and close-mindedness. The “ideological colonization” is happening but, it’s happening in private religious institutions. They are the ones with, as the pope puts it, a “nasty tendency to indoctrinate.”

Joshua Lewis Berg
Humanist Celebrant
Glendale

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Italians are getting married and and having babies at rates lower than at any time since the founding of modern Italy in 1861. Immigration restrictions keep their population’s growth down, and because of Italy’s continuing series of economic recessions, immigrants already there are not reproducing much either, and many youth must go to other countries to find work.

This approaches a situation which Italy’s Health Minister calls “non-renewal.” She says, “That means we are a dying country.”

Pope Francis may have the wrong culprit. I would need to see some evidence to back his assertion of indoctrination in schools causing changes in gender identity. What we do know in reality is that Italy provides little support for child care, and that women there as all over the world nowadays must work outside the home to keep a family afloat.

But traditional sex roles still dominate. Many Italian men expect wives to be like their mamas, providing meals, laundry and other household essentials, and quite often they just stay at home instead of marrying, happy to let their mothers care for them.

Francis bragged of cooking his own meals as a Cardinal. Maybe he should up his game now that he is Pope and model an image of male behavior even more encouraging of reproduction. I know that I am not the only woman turned on by the vision of a man wielding a dish cloth, diaper or broom, never mind that in this case he is likely to be wearing a skirt.

Roberta Medford
Atheist
Montrose

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I believe so. Human beings come in two denominations: male and female; that’s it. So when a man or woman who possesses all the gender-specific biology of their particular category, insist that they are actually the exact opposite, we should not applaud this bizarre mental quirk and call it “healthy,” let alone, teach it as optional to elementary children. We should prescribe them counseling, and work to restore their common sense, while helping them embrace the truth of what they were born to be. Psych wards are full of people who think they are reincarnated royalty or characters from fiction books, or even animals inhabiting human forms, yet none of these would we normally coddle and say they are just fine and normal. No, we call the men in white suits, and treat them for return to sanity.

Once, while moonlighting for Uber, I picked a guy up who was either transvestite or transgender. He wasn’t fooling anyone, he looked ridiculous, but I didn’t treat him with anything but professional respect. We pulled up to a guard shack in a gated community and I made the apparently egregious mistake of telling the guard that “he,” the passenger, was looking for his friend’s house. That’s when the passenger threw a hissy fit. He started repeating “he?!” several times in anger, as if I should have respected the fantasy and not the fact that “he” was obviously a man. He slammed the door open and stumbled away in his high heels. The guard and I looked at each other and just shook our heads. Listen, there are men who simply dress like women, and others that mutilate their bodies in a feeble attempt to more resemble the gender they are not but wish to be. Is this what you want schools teaching your kids, that even though they are boys and girls, that maybe they are really girls and boys? What a scatterbrained trip to lay on vulnerable kids. The Bible says, “Teach children how they should live, and they will remember it all their life” (Proverbs 22:6 GNT). Teach them that God made them male and female and that he didn’t mistakenly put their souls in wrong bodies.

The Church should not be unlike the aforementioned Uber case with regard to its “passengers.” It should treat all with the same respect befitting anyone made in God’s image, but the Church should not promote what is clearly antithetical to divine will and the biblical worldview. No sinner of any stripe should expect to enter a church and have their fetishes baptized, but they ought to be welcomed to come and learn of why that is so. While mental illness may be the cause of some of this, wrong thinking accounts for the rest, and the growing ignorance of God is why society can no longer tell its men’s room on the right from the women’s room on the left.

Rev. Bryan A. Griem
Tujunga