*Gender Reassignment?

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Q. I teach a 10th-grade CCD class on sexuality and morality. I have been asked what the Church thinks about an individual having a sex-change operation and was not sure how to respond.


Fr. Rocky: A “sex-change operation” is a bad idea, and the Church prohibits such operations by virtue of the Fifth Commandment and the injunction that no one should mutilate himself. The Catechism points out, “Except when performed for strictly therapeutic medical reasons, directly intended amputations, mutilations, and sterilizations performed on innocent persons are against the moral law” (No. 2297).

While we are eager to follow the Church’s teachings, in this case it is made easier because of the scientific data now available on “sex-change operations”. In a conclusive and persuasive article on the subject featured in the November 2004 issue of the journal First Things, Dr. Paul McHugh, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry at John Hopkins University concludes: “I have witnessed a great deal of damage from sex reassignment. The children transformed from their male constitution into female roles suffered prolonged distress and misery as they sensed their natural attitudes. 


Their parents usually lived with guilt over their decisions – second-guessing themselves and somewhat ashamed of the fabrication, both surgical and social, they had imposed on their sons. As for the adults who came to us claiming to have discovered their ‘true’ sexual identity and to have heard about sex-change operations, we psychiatrists have been distracted from studying the causes and natures of their mental misdirections by preparing them for surgery and for a life in the other sex. We have wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure and ultimately prevent it.”

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