PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — The discussion of gender amongst adults and children across the United States has been a hot topic of late. Now, Portland’s archdiocese weighed in on the matter, calling for all Catholic schools to use names and genders assigned at birth.
The 17-page document released January 25, titled “A Catholic Response to Gender Identity Theory,” states that “(Gender Affirming Care) is in conflict with a Catholic worldview, and, furthermore, is not supported by robust scientific evidence,” and calls for Catholic schools in Portland to not use preferred names and pronouns.
First reported on by OregonLive, the guidelines set out by the archdiocese calls for Catholic schools to use language which is dependent on “biological sex” as opposed to “self-perceived gender identity.”
The document specifies this includes having bathrooms “organized by biological sex,” sports segregated by gender and bans signages and symbols from being displayed in Catholic institutions.
In a prologue letter to the document, Archbishop Alexander Sample said he “offered these guidelines as a teaching and formation resource and also as an encouragement and hope for everyone working with those dealing with gender issues.”
The National Catholic Reporter noted this Portland directive is one of “at least 34 gender policies and instructions approved by Catholic dioceses nationwide” and is extremely similar to most of them.
According to a statistic by the Archdiocese of Portland, as of the 2017-2018 school year, 26% of students enrolled in Catholic elementary schools are non-Catholic and 45% of students enrolled in Catholic high schools are non-Catholic.
KOIN 6 News reached out to the Archdiocese of Portland for comment and has not yet received a reply.
‘Profoundly disappointed’
Oregon State Senate Majority Leader Kate Lieber had strong words after learning of the archdiocese’s statement.
“I am profoundly disappointed in the Archdiocese of Portland,” said Lieber, a Democrat from District 14 who is also a member of the LGBTQ Caucus.
Her critique took aim at the directive that Catholic institutions should not enable any form of gender transition, social or medical.
“They say that they’re leading with compassion,” she said, “yet what they’re doing is they are negating these children’s lives and their identities by basically saying, ‘We are not going to listen to you, we do not value what you have to say, we do not care about what you think you need.’”
She said the church’s stance could lead to a damaging and unsafe environment for students.
“Incidents like these and these kinds of documents, especially for kids that are in school, are incredibly dangerous,” Lieber said. “No church, no politician should tell anyone about who they are and how they can be.”