Gender Ideology

Gender ideology is a flawed philosophy treats gender as not merely distinct from sex, but as entirely separable from sex, as though the way sexes are lived in each culture should have no relation to sex and to the ontological difference between the sexes.  Secondly, gender ideology treats gender as “dependent upon the subjective mindset of each person, who can choose a gender not corresponding to his or her biological sex, and therefore with the way others see that person (transgenderism).” Here too the reason why this ideology is mistaken has a philosophical basis. Some persons can and do experience a dissonance between their affective sense of personal identity (particularly in relation to the social expression of sexuality) and the sex of their bodies. But because of the relation of the body and soul in our given and shared human nature, and because of the relation of gender to sex, our subjective experience is not ipso facto determinative of either our sex or our gender.

Catechism of the Catholic Church

• 364 The human body shares in the dignity of “the image of God”: it is a human body precisely because it is animated by a spiritual soul, and it is the whole human person that is intended to become, in the body of Christ, a temple of the Spirit. “Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For thisreason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and to hold it in honorsince God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.”
• 2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support betweenthe sexes are lived out.
• 2393 By creating the human being man and woman, God gives personal dignity equally to the one and the other. Each of them, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity.
• 2297 Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law.