U.S. bishops voted Wednesday to ban gender reassignment surgeries at Catholic hospitals in their latest update to the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.
The seventh edition of the ERD states that “we have a duty to ‘protect our humanity,’” which includes “accepting it and respecting it as it was created.” The document states this means Catholic healthcare services cannot provide medical interventions intended to “alter the fundamental order of the human body in its form or function,” be it surgical, hormonal, or genetic.
“In accord with the mission of Catholic health care, which includes serving those who are vulnerable, Catholic health care services and providers ‘must employ all appropriate resources to mitigate the suffering of those who experience gender incongruence or gender dysphoria’ and to provide for the full range of their health care needs, employing only those means that respect the fundamental order of the human body,” the document reads.
The updated guidance comes two years after the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a doctrinal note on the “Moral Limits to Technological Manipulation of the Human Body.” This guideline said all appropriate resources must be used to help those struggling with “gender incongruence,” but such means “must respect the fundamental order of the human body.”
The nonprofit Catholic Health Association of the United States said Wednesday that these updated directives are “consistent with Catholic health care practice,” which prohibit medical treatment intended to change sexual characteristics. The group added that Catholic providers will continue to welcome patients who identify as transgender.
According to the Catholic Health Association, 1 in 7 patients in the U.S. receive care from Catholic hospitals daily.
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In December 2022, the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sided with groups against the Biden administration’s requirement that healthcare and insurance groups perform gender reassignment procedures. The case was brought by religious doctors who said the mandate violated their beliefs.
The Supreme Court said Wednesday it will hear two cases back-to-back challenging state laws banning biological men from women’s sports on Jan. 13, 2026. All rulings in the cases are expected by the end of June.