Should Catholics Use Someone’s “Preferred Pronouns”?

You may have wondered, “Should Catholics use pronouns?” It may be near impossible not to. The simple and obvious answer, grammatically speaking, is yes, of course we should use pronouns if we want our language to be clear and correspond to reality. 

In the English language, we use pronouns all the time to keep sentences from becoming repetitive and clunky. Without possessive pronouns like “their,” we’d have to say things like “John and Mary took John and Mary’s books to John and Mary’s car.” 

But should we use someone’s “preferred pronouns” that do not correspond to their sex? No. 

The truth can be defined as when what we believe corresponds to reality. St. Augustine said you don’t need to defend the truth, it can defend itself. The truth — reality — is self-evident. Ideologies, on the other hand, are not true, and therefore need constant affirming and propping-up. 

This is one reason why those who would impose an ideology have always targeted the use of language. Words shape how we think. As George Orwell observed in 1984, if ideologues want to control people, one way to do that is to make the people unaware of, and even comforted by, absurd contradictions in their own thinking. For example, “Freedom is slavery,” or “Ignorance is strength.” We can now add to this list, “A man is a woman.” 

Transgender activists demand that we set aside truth. They attempt to conscript our use of language into service of their ideology. One way this is happening is through the demand to use someone’s “preferred pronouns,” or pronouns not based on reality. Using these pronouns is never compassionate or loving; let’s unpack why.

Gender ideology has highlighted the use of pronouns in particular because, in the English language, we use he, him, and, his to refer to males, and we use she, her, and hers to refer to females. Sadly, many people suffering from body and identity-related distress have been misled to believe that their suffering will be relieved by others affirming them as a member of the opposite sex. 

These vulnerable individuals have been misled into believing something called “gender identity” exists. According to this false concept, “gender identity” is based purely on someone’s feelings of being male or female (or something else), that can’t be measured, observed, or even defined other than by the way a person feels at any given moment. 

Therefore, according to the transgender movement, if a boy or man feels that he is really a female, then he really is a female. He is told in no uncertain terms that, for his suffering to end, he must “transition” into a woman through a host of interventions. These interventions begin with psycho-social transitioning, such as adopting opposite-sex pronouns and dressing as a woman.

Over 80% of the time this approach progresses to the person being put on puberty blockers (if he is still a child) and high-dose cross-sex hormones (to suppress his male hormones and increase female ones to produce secondary sex characteristics), and even having irreversible “bottom surgery” to remove his genitals and use that tissue or intestinal tissue to fashion the appearance of female ones. (Note that, if this example were about a female feeling she was a male, she would be encouraged by transgender activists to have similarly drastic drug interventions and surgeries to remove her breasts [top surgery], close her vagina, and fabricate the appearance of male genitals.) Insidiously, transgender ideology encourages that this process of transitioning begin at very young ages, before puberty. 

Using preferred pronouns is not a harmless concession, but the first step in a cascade of interventions that make someone a patient for life. Being “affirmed” by everyone around them as a member of the opposite sex makes it more likely they will persist in their trans- identification. Studies have shown that the vast majority of those who psycho-socially transition go on to drug interventions and, nearly all of those who begin puberty blockers go on to take cross sex hormones. These studies — and others like them — highlight the domino effect of social transitioning leading to greater and more invasive interventions. 

The transgender movement falsely asserts that sex is somehow really complicated, nuanced, and complex, but it’s actually really simple. Male and female. Our sex is determined at conception, observed in utero or at birth, and never changes — and cannot change — throughout our lifetime. An organism’s sex is the body’s design for a role in reproduction, and is defined by the type of gamete, or reproductive cell, that it produces: sperm or ova. Sex is not a spectrum, nor is it fluid. It is an unchanging, biological fact that is genetically determined and reflected in every cell of the body. (For more information on the sexual dimorphism, visit SophiaOnline.org/Transgender.)

As we noted above, one of the first steps into the alternate reality of transgender ideology is for a person to begin requiring others to use preferred pronouns (for example, a man may insist that others use she, her, or hers to refer to him, or by non-gendered pronouns they, theirs, and them). He or she may also choose a new name and require others to call him or her by that name. Using his or her given name would be called “deadnaming,” as if the former self has died and been replaced by the new self. 

The reason for the insistence on affirmation in gender ideology comes from its philosophical underpinnings. The philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche developed the idea that we bring something into existence by affirming it. Therefore, in this worldview, a person’s dignity comes from the affirmation or approval of other people. This is why, when someone’s claimed gender identity is rejected by others, it causes a traumatic experience. When someone with this worldview hears that, “no one is born in the wrong body,” or that someone who identifies as transgender should be helped to accept his or her sexual identity (CCC 2333), or if others refuse to use their preferred pronouns, it can seem to them that their chosen identity is invalid, and their dignity — and even their very existence — denied.   The reason for the insistence on affirmation in gender ideology comes from its philosophical underpinnings. The philosopher Fredrich Nietzsche developed the idea that we bring something into existence by affirming it. Tweet This

This brief portrait of the ultimately nihilistic ideology that is the transgender movement illustrates well the seductively evil alternate reality it has fashioned for those caught up in its falsehoods. The truth is that our dignity comes from being made in God’s image and likeness. Because all human beings are made in God’s image and likeness, each of us possesses infinite worth, and are called by God to a covenant with Him, to be, through Baptism, His adopted sons and daughters. Our dignity can never be taken away from us. It does not come from having our behavior or feelings affirmed by others. 

When we fail to recognize the source of a person’s dignity, we perpetuate his or her confusion, and, even if well-meaning, perpetuate the harmful falsehood that has confused them. Leading someone away from the truth does not help them. Nobody is “born trans” or “born in the wrong body.” God made every woman a female, and she’ll always be female. He made every man a male, and he’ll always be male. God loves every woman and man, no matter what, and wants each of us to be the person He made us to be. As the Catechism teaches, “Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God . . . “Being man” or “being woman” is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator” (369). Therefore, we must stand in the truth, rather than in the lie that causes confusion. 

Insidiously, in their messaging to Christians, gender ideologues have intentionally framed transgender activism as “compassionate,” and suggest exploiting the inherent compassion of Christians to advance their false and harmful views. But we can never separate compassion and truth. Sometimes we might want to go along with someone’s transition and affirm their new chosen gender identity to make it easier on them, hopefully spare them psychological suffering, and to acquiesce to the social pressure of the transgender ideology that tells us this is what we should do. In fact, when we do so, we are only making it easy on ourselves. What is truly good for the person suffering from distress about their body or identity isn’t a lie, but the truth given in charity, and true support to accept their sexual identity. The only real choice is to help the person accept reality as it is. 

One important way we can do this is by using language that expresses and conforms to objective reality. We should never refer to someone using opposite-sex pronouns, plural pronouns, or purely made-up neutral ones like zie. Participating in forms of social transitioning, like using opposite-sex pronouns, encourages a vulnerable person in their confusion that he or she can change their sex, and increases the likelihood that they will go on to have more dramatic, irreversible interventions, such as puberty blockers, high-dose cross-sex hormones, and surgery. 

Importantly, parents and Catholic school faculty or staff members in particular, should never encourage or invite students to introduce themselves with “preferred pronouns.” Teachers and administrators especially must protect the common good in their classrooms and schools, and of the other students. To force those other students to participate in a lie would, in fact, be a form of bullying. And, rather than helping students discover and understand the world as it is, forcing them to use false pronouns and names would only undermine their growing — but fragile and immature — grasp of reality. 

While we always want to stand in the truth and express and conform ourselves and our language to the objective and self-evident reality of the world as God made it, we certainly do not want to express the truth without compassion. But compassion without honesty leads to confusion and more pain. This relationship between compassion and truth is why the Ten Commandments prohibit “bearing false witness against your neighbor.” As Pope Francis said, “To live with false communication is serious because it impedes relationships and, therefore, impedes love. Where there are lies there is no love; there can be no love” (General Audience, November 14, 2018). It is truly loving and caring to help someone make sense of their own concrete experience in light of the truth. This fact is key: you cannot separate compassion and truth. The Church’s teachings on morality and the human person are compassionate because they are true. 

God willed each of us to be either male or female at our conception. This truth is both observational and backed by science down to every cell in our body. God did not make a mistake when He created us, and it would be a violation of the truth to suggest that He did. So, to support someone in their confusion cannot be compassionate, even if we mean it to be. Why? Because it’s leading them away from the truth.

So, if, as Catholics, we should not use alternate pronouns for individuals suffering from body- and identity-related distress, or new opposite-sex chosen names, what should we do? We should affirm the person, but not the perceived trans-identity.

We need to listen with compassion to every person’s story and how they came to their identity beliefs. Behind every need to assert one’s identity, there is a story we should always seek to understand with empathy, because there is a vulnerable person in need of love. As welcoming and loving members of the Church who are aware of the truth and want others to know the truth as well, we must acknowledge the real struggles, suffering, and confusion the person may be experiencing, without condoning or universalizing their experience. 

All are welcomed into the community of the Church. A community is healthy and strong, filled with peace and joy if it maintains the message of the Gospel. While the Church is welcoming to all, Jesus also loves us too much to leave us in our sin and suffering. He invites us to so much more. If a person rejects His invitation because of a perceived identity, it is painful because they live in the misunderstanding that their identity is rooted in how they have chosen to live, not that they bear the image of God. Our welcome must be offered while asking for God’s grace so that they can accept the truth of who God calls them to be.

[Editor’s Note: A version of this article was originally published at CatholicLink.]