The Vatican has reiterated what is common sense to most, but had to be said. A sex-change operation doesn’t really change your sex. It seems obvious to most people, but with all the confusion and propaganda of recent years, sometimes you just have to say the sky is blue and water is wet.
Your sex is more than the location and type of sex organs, it is part of your ontological self. It is part of who you are in a metaphysical sense. If you get a piece of yourself chopped off, it doesn’t change who you are. In a way, those who say sex-change changes your sexual identity are just proceeding in the long line of heretics who claimed that human beings are not spiritual beings, but purely material things that can be manipulated like clay to be whatever we claim them to be.
Among the consequences of the Vatican statement is a directive that parish records should not be altered to reflect the sex-change operation. It also says that so-called transgenders are not eligible for marriage, ordination, or to enter religious life.
My own news reporting has always reflected that reality. Whenever I write a news story that includes a sexual self-mutilator in it (as I prefer to call them), I always refer to them by the pronoun that reflects how they were born. In other words, “Sheila,” nee “Joe,” is a “he” whatever his breasts and other organs tell you he is.
