In a characteristically thoughtful and informative column, Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield examines the recent controversy involving public bathrooms and transgendered people. With his typical clarity, Bishop Paprocki explains the legal background behind the legislative battles in North Carolina and Mississippi, and then gives an overview of several concrete instances from his own state of Illinois of transgendered people demanding to be allowed into bathrooms based on their “gender identity” rather than their biological sex.
Bishop Paprocki also cites expert medical opinion that catering to and encouraging transgenderism can be extremely harmful, especially to children:
“…the American College of Pediatricians has pointed out that transgenderism is classified as a mental illness and therefore has warned legislators and educators that conditioning children to accept transgenderism as normal is child abuse. They advised, ‘When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind, not the body, and it should be treated as such.’ “
Bishop Paprocki also quotes Pope Francis from his recent exhortation Amoris Laetitia, in which the Pope says:
“[Gender ideology] denies the difference and reciprocity in nature of a man and a woman and envisages a society without sexual differences … It is one thing to be understanding of human weakness and the complexities of life, and another to accept ideologies that attempt to sunder what are inseparable aspects of reality. Let us not fall into the sin of trying to replace the Creator. We are creatures, and not omnipotent. Creation is prior to us and must be received as a gift. At the same time, we are called to protect our humanity, and this means, in the first place, accepting it and respecting it as it was created” (no. 56).
Read the rest of Bishop Paprocki’s column here.