Love thy neighbor: Elizabeth Anscombe, queer identities, and what it means to believe someone

This week, I was invited by a number of student groups at the Catholic University of America to give a talk on LGBTQ+ identities in the Catholic Church. I covered a number of controversial topics while trying to make sense of the challenges facing the Church, including the experiences of trans persons, conversion therapy, critical race theory, Freudian psychoanalysis, spiritual manipulation, and seminary formation. I’ve been trying to connect various issues facing the Church today, and this talk was my first public lecture identifying some key connections I’ve discovered. You can watch the video above!

I was invited to give this talk, in part, because of a Catholic speaker who had been invited by another student group to give a lecture against “transgenderism.” I address some of those issues in my lecture. But if you want to read some of my (limited and developing) views and perspectives on gender, Catholicism, and trans/non-binary persons (and also one piece by a friend), you can check out:

• Catechesis, Policy, and “Gender Theory” in Milwaukee: An Informal Commentary

• Why would canon lawyers support “preferred pronouns”?

• Why Catholic arguments about trans persons don’t work

• Gender and otherness

• Gender and charity

If you want to learn more about conversion therapy, the ex-gay narrative, and sexual orientation change efforts:

• My discussion with ReConstructing Catholic

• An ex-gay encyclopedia for Catholics

• Catholic promotion of conversion therapy: the list

• On the father of conversion therapy: a recorded conversation with Scott Herr

• Conversion therapy and Catholicism: a conversation with Christopher Dowling

• ToB Catholics primed me to reject the Church’s approach to homosexuality

• Getting to the root of conversion therapy

• My diocese’s seminarians went through conversion therapy, and didn’t know it

As I mention in my talk, I am not an expert on these questions. A large part of what I have been trying to do is talking with people who have been harmed by sexual orientation change efforts, and also identifying problems with popular Catholic arguments about trans people. But if you want to understand these people, I highly recommend you dig in to their stories. When we can truly learn to listen, I believe we can have a much more helpful approach.