U.S. bishops pass directive forbidding transgender surgeries at Catholic hospitals
Caroline MolloyCatholic hospitals in the United States are explicitly forbidden from carrying out transgender-related surgeries on individuals who believe themselves to be the opposite sex, the U.S. bishops said this week.
The prelates, gathered at the plenary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) in Baltimore, voted on Nov. 12 to direct hospitals to “preserve the integrity of the human body” when treating individuals with gender dysphoria.
Such individuals often seek surgery to make their bodies conform to that of the opposite sex. But in updated guidance, the bishops said that while Catholic health care providers must employ “all appropriate resources” to mitigate the suffering of such patients, they can use “only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body.”
The new rule makes into explicit USCCB policy what the bishops expressed in a doctrinal note in 2023 when they said Catholic providers must not take part in procedures that “aim to transform the sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex.”
The revised directives were hailed by the Catholic Health Association, which in a Nov. 12 statement said that the rules “reaffirm the Church’s teaching on the dignity of all persons and their right to life from conception to natural death.”
The revisions “clarify and affirm current clinical practices” and “are consistent with Catholic health care practice that does not allow for medical interventions that alter sexual characteristics absent an underlying condition,” the group said.
The organization said Catholic health care providers would continue to treat those who identify as transgender “with dignity and respect.”
