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‘The ideology…is harmful since it declares that people can remake themselves according to how they feel,’ CMA wrote

The Catholic Medical Association presented a “highly anticipated” public position paper deconstructing gender ideology to medical students and professionals in Phoenix at its recent education conference.

The paper argued “the attempt to address surgically and with hormones what should be treated psychiatrically with counselling is not authentic health care.”

Even more, “sex reassignment does not respect the fundamental order of the human person with a body-and-soul unity,” it continued. “The ideology underlying [gender dysphoria] is harmful since it declares that people can remake themselves according to how they feel.”

The paper also cited “interventions that are structurally and/or functionally mutilating and have long term and irreversible consequences.”

The Catholic Medical Association “is the largest association of Catholic individuals in health care,” according to its website. The organization exists to “represent faithful Catholics in the medical community; create and organize educational resources and events; advocate for members, the Church, and the medical profession in public forums; and provide guidance for bishops and other national leaders.”

The CMA “strongly disagrees with current medical interventions in gender dysphoria treatment for minors for the reasons outlined in our statement,” association President Craig Treptow said in a statement provided to The College Fix.

“Catholic physicians do not deny care,” Dr. Treptow wrote. They offer holistic, life-affirming, evidence-based health care.”

The Fix asked the CMA whether the organization has aimed specifically to help medical students resist gender ideology on their campuses. It has not yet received a response.

In a Sept. 18 newsletter post, CMA stated it had advanced the position paper at its 92nd Annual Educational Conference earlier that month.

The conference brought more than 700 doctors, health care professionals and medical students together for four days, CMA wrote Sept. 11 on X.

The resounding success of CMA's conference is undeniable as more than 700 physicians, health care professionals and medical students descended upon Phoenix, Ariz. Sept 6-10th. The theme of courage united attendees regardless of their specific medical fields or years of practice. pic.twitter.com/9Sy7E7ukEj

— Catholic Medical Association (@catholicmed) September 11, 2023

It featured Dr. Patrick Hunter (pictured), a pediatrician and bioethicist who has taught at Tripler Army Medical Center, the University of Hawaii and the University of Central Florida.

Dr. Hunter “gave a comprehensive historical review of the evidence that was used to determine the current treatment for children with gender dysphoria,” according to the CMA newsletter. He demonstrated “why the current treatment [protocol] needs to change.”

Dr. Hunter is not the only professor recently criticizing transgender medical procedures for children.

“Medical students should be taught that gender dysphoria should be compassionately treated with therapy to help reconcile patients to their natural, healthy bodies,” ethicist Nathanael Blake told The Fix in a July interview in response to the Catholic Loyola University Chicago’s addition of “LGBTQ+ Health” courses with content on “transgender children” to its medical school curriculum.

Colorado State University Professor Moti Gorin, a medical ethicist, has also raised concerns about the reliability of evidence used to justify prescribing hormones and surgery.

“Medical school students should be taught that diagnoses of gender dysphoria in minors have been skyrocketing in recent years, and we do not know why,” Gorin told The Fix in a January interview. “This rapid increase in diagnoses, in which the large majority of patients are girls (natal females), combined with the lack of long-term data on treatment outcomes, requires more research, with respect to both underlying cause and evidence-based solutions.”

Gorin also emphasized the more cautious approach of other Western nations, which “have concluded that the evidence of clinical benefit is not strong enough to justify these risky and sometimes irreversible treatments, aside from exceptional circumstances.”

“This discrepancy in international guidelines” often used in the United States “is very unusual and ethically troubling,” Gorin said.

MORE: ‘Transgender children’ course offered by Catholic medical school

IMAGES: Catholic Medical Association

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