Despite its flaws and missteps on immigration, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) has made the right move in banning "gender-affirming care" in Catholic healthcare facilities nationwide.
🚨 BREAKING: The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has officially voted to ban gender-transition procedures, including surgeries and hormone treatments, in Catholic hospitals across the country.
— CitizenGO (@CitizenGO) November 14, 2025
Over 600 Catholic hospitals and countless affiliated facilities will now follow… pic.twitter.com/J6jHrtOStF
U.S. Catholic bishops voted Wednesday to make official a ban on gender-affirming care for transgender patients at Catholic hospitals. The step formalizes a yearslong process for the U.S. church to address transgender health care.
From a Baltimore hotel ballroom, the bishops overwhelmingly approved revisions to their ethical and religious directives that guide the nation's thousands of Catholic health care institutions and providers.
More than one in seven patients in the U.S. are treated each day at Catholic hospitals, according to the Catholic Health Association. Catholic hospitals are the only medical center in some communities.
Major medical groups and health organizations support gender-affirming care for transgender patients.
Most Catholic health care institutions have taken a conservative approach and not offered gender-affirming care, which may involve hormonal, psychological and surgical treatments. The new directives will formalize that mandate. Bishops will have autonomy in making the directives into law for their dioceses.
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The new rules reflect and reaffirm Dignitas Infinita, which says changing a person's sex "risk[s] threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception."
The updated Ethical and Religious Directives now reflect Dignitas Infinita, affirming that attempts to alter a person’s sex “risk threatening the unique dignity the person has received from the moment of conception.”https://t.co/gzqhIfdxoM
— CatholicVote (@CatholicVote) November 14, 2025
The directive states, "Catholic health care services must not provide or permit medical interventions, whether surgical, hormonal, or genetic, that aim not to restore but rather to alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function. This includes, for example, some forms of genetic engineering whose purpose is not medical treatment, as well as interventions that aim to transform sexual characteristics of a human body into those of the opposite sex (or to nullify sexual characteristics of a human body)."
It says instead that holistic care should be provided to those who have gender dysphoria.
The news comes as some Catholics question a move by Pope Leo XIV to have lunch with "transgender Catholic activists," including Alessia Nobile.
NEW: Pope Leo XIV will share a meal this Sunday with Alessia Nobile and four fellow transgender Catholic activists, during the Vatican’s Jubilee of the Poor — marking the most significant public encounter shared between the pope and the trans community. https://t.co/WynJLdOAdi
— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) November 14, 2025
Pope Leo XIV will meet and dine in a group setting with Alessia Nobile, a transgender Catholic activist from Bari, during a special lunch at the Vatican this Sunday, November 16.
The encounter will take place as part of the Church’s Jubilee of the Poor, an event coinciding with the World Day of the Poor that includes Mass and a communal meal with those in need.
Nobile, 46, has confirmed that she and four other transgender women were invited to the luncheon after she formally requested an audience with the new pope, motivated by her concern that the Church might “turn back on LGBTQ rights” after the death of her friend, Pope Francis.
The upcoming meeting — unprecedented in placing a transgender advocate at the pope’s luncheon — is seen as a continuation of Pope Francis’s legacy of outreach to marginalized people, and Nobile hopes it will reassure the LGBTQ community of the Vatican’s commitment to inclusion and dialogue.
Some are skeptical of the move.
It’s telling that the order of identity written here is first “transgender” then “Catholic.”
— Tristan (@tristansilva1) November 14, 2025
Shows priorities of the writer & the people who claim to be “transgender Catholic[s].” https://t.co/3Cn2tTi1ih
And others point to the "mixed signals" being sent not only by the recent USCCB directive, but the Vatican's opposition to "gender ideology" at the U.N. conference.
Getting mixed signals here....
— UnitasSacra (@UnitasSacra) November 14, 2025
Pope Leo XIV hosting trans advocates for lunch next week, while the Holy See just doubled down against "gender ideology" at the UN conference.@CatholicSOTC https://t.co/hklErxhL7w pic.twitter.com/MljZVSjzEE
It's also worth noting who is reporting the story.
People.
— Bw9696 (@Bw8496) November 14, 2025
Read who is saying this: https://t.co/9w6Uj2rAaU pic.twitter.com/EpR39Ut7nh
So take it with a grain of salt.
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