Hot Take: Gender Diversity Has Been Part of the Catholic Church Since the

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This reminds us of groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, who stand with Hamas and accuse Israel of genocide. We’re not familiar with U.S. Catholic magazine, but they assure us that saints and key figures dating back to the dawn of Catholicism were what we’d today consider nonbinary and that gender diversity has always been a part of the Church.

Gender diversity has been part of the Catholic Church since the very beginning, as saints and key Catholic figures lived as what we would today call nonbinary or trans to mirror a God who supersedes all human constructs. https://t.co/WnH6gmazpv

— U.S. Catholic magazine (@USCatholic) December 7, 2024

The magazine’s “about the author” blurb tells us:

Emma Cieslik (she/her) is a queer Catholic scholar focused on material culture and LGBTQ+ identity within the church. She founded and directs Queer and Catholic, A CLGS Oral History Project based out of the Pacific School of Religion.

Cieslik writes:

The church’s gender foundations are cracking—its scaffolding of doctrinal semantics and conflicting guidance from Pope Francis and the Vatican buckling under pressure for LGBTQ+ inclusion, women’s ordination, and abortion rights. At its core is church leadership’s fear of “ideological colonization,” or the spread of western gender values to a traditional church. But if the church pushes for modernization, a progressive view of gender must be part of it.

…

… Western colonizers have historically forced patriarchal and queerphobic gender ideologies onto Indigenous communities around the world. The Catholic Church has been instrumental in these changes, so to argue that the church is somehow separate or fighting “ideological colonization” flatly contradicts church history.

Even more, Dignitas Infinita closely mirrors attempts in European and American countries to deny trans, nonbinary, and queer people’s access to gender affirming health care, restrooms, and important identification documents, including driver’s licenses and birth certificates. Many Americans could argue that Dignitas Infinita falls in line with modern American conservative values; there are currently more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ bills on the American docket today.