Journal of Religion and Society

Abstract

Between January to April 2023, at least 417 anti-LGBTQ bills had been introduced in state legislatures in the United States. Many of these bills focus on transgender care or gender affirming care and attempt to legislate against such care. The contemporary social change in the United States and elsewhere towards recognition of the reality and lived experience of transgender people and the medical treatment and care which they seek often conflicts with, and is opposed legally and morally by, religious perspectives on human sexuality and traditional doctrinal teachings. That conflict is clearly on display in recent official Catholic teaching. On March 20, 2023, the Committee on Doctrine of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) weighed in on this culture-war issue and issued its own statement, a Doctrinal Note on the Moral Limits of Technological Manipulation of the Human Body. In this essay, we analyze that Note and agree with Daniel Horan’s assessment that the Note is a “disaster.” We offer theological, biblical, anthropological, scientific, and experiential critiques of it to sustain that charge.2