Diocese in southern Iowa bans woke policies on gender identity

by WorldTribune Staff, January 17, 2023

The Diocese of Des Moines is leading the charge in the war against woke in Iowa.

Starting on Monday in all of its 17 schools and 80 parishes across the state, the Catholic diocese bans the use of gender blockers, prohibits cross dressing and the use of preferred pronouns, and rules that students and worshipers must use the bathrooms and locker rooms of their biological sex.

Bishop William Joensen leads the diocese, which has 80 parishes, 17 schools and 130,000 members.

“Respect for creation includes respect for one’s biological sex,” the diocese’s six-page policy guide states. “The human person is a body-soul union, and the body — as created male or female — is an essential aspect of the human person. The mystery of human sexuality as a key component of personal identity is received as a gift created by God that we are not authorized to seek to change.”

The guide continues: “Students and those entrusted to the care of the Church are not permitted to take ‘puberty blockers,’ even if self-administered, on parish or school property, with the purpose of a potential or actual ‘gender reassignment.’ ”

The guide compares such treatments to a form of “mutilation,” maintaining they are “morally prohibited.”

Instead, those “who express a tension between their biological sex and their ‘gender’ ” should be “guided to appropriate ministers and counselors who will assist the person in a manner that is in accord with the directives and teachings of the Church. The diagnosis of gender dysphoria does not merit the alteration of one’s body through drug-induced hormone therapies or surgery; rather, one is entitled to receive unconditional love and support, as well as psychological and pastoral care,” the diocese says.

Catholics online offered support for the diocese, saying “good” for the church and another writing, “At last!”

“Finally, a church that is acting like a church,” one supporter wrote.

Democrat politicians joined LGBTQ+ advocates in condemning the rules.

“This is not what Jesus would do,” Democrat state Sen. Claire Celsi wrote on Facebook, saying the rules “codifies ostracism of transgender kids.”

Keenan Crow, director of policy and advocacy for One Iowa, said: “That sounds like conversion therapy to me. Which we know for a fact not only cannot deliver the results that it promises, but that in fact is… a dangerous discredited practice that every major American Medical Association has come out swinging against.”


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