Catholics plan 'dialogues' with trans community after Louisiana Legislature veto override

By Kate Scanlon, OSV News

(OSV News) -- Local Catholics are planning to hold "dialogues" with members of the transgender community after the Louisiana Legislature overrode the governor's veto of a ban on gender reassignment surgery or hormonal treatments for minors.

When Louisiana’s Republican-majority Legislature overturned Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards’ recent veto of the ban on July 18, the state was positioned to join, as of early next year, 20 other states that have enacted similar bans, although some have been blocked by judges amid legal challenges.

Tom Costanza, executive director of the Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops, told OSV News in an email on July 21 that the group plans to hold "dialogues and listening sessions with this community."

"The Vatican in its document 'Male and Female He Created Them' calls for a path of dialogue," he said.

That document states that sexuality is "a fundamental component of one’s personhood," but called for dialogue toward "a deeper understanding of the ways in which sexual difference between men and women is lived out in a variety of cultures."

In guidance on health care policy and practices released March 20, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Doctrine said it opposed interventions that "involve the use of surgical or chemical techniques that aim to exchange the sex characteristics of a patient's body for those of the opposite sex or for simulations thereof."

"Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person," the doctrinal note said.

Supporters of prohibitions on surgical or hormonal treatments for minors who identify as transgender say those bans will prevent young people from making irreversible decisions that they may later come to regret as adults. Opponents of bans on these procedures argue that preventing those interventions could cause other harm to minors, such as mental health issues or an increased risk of self-harm.

In a July 18 statement, Edwards said that in his "eight years as a Democratic governor with a Republican legislature, I have issued 319 vetoes."

"More than 99% of those vetoes have been sustained," he said. "Usually, we have been able to find common ground to move Louisiana forward, and I am thankful to the legislature for all the good we have accomplished together. But we have also had profound disagreements. Just two of my vetoes have been overridden."

Edwards continued that the first time his veto was overridden, "on the Congressional district map, I said the bill was illegal and I expected the courts would throw it out. The courts have done so."

"Today, I was overridden for the second time, on my veto of a bill that needlessly harms a very small population of vulnerable children, their families, and their health care professionals," he said. "I expect the courts to throw out this unconstitutional bill, as well.”