There isn't much research available about the timing and causality between gender discordance, comorbidities, and adverse outcomes.

The research that is available suggests a lack of connection, that the comorbidities and Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) could still have occurred without the presence or indication of gender discordance. This is especially the case when looking not at the patients’ comorbidities only, but their parents’ as well.

Parental mental illness is much more likely to begin before their children manifest gender discordance or are even born. A 2021 study from Australia found that over 52% of patients with gender discordance had a mother with mental illness and 40% of patients had a father with mental illness.

The causal narrative advanced by advocates of "gender-affirming care" just doesn’t have clear support in the available research, because the picture is much more complicated.

Coming Soon: Create in Me a Pure Heart

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the USCCB's pastoral statement on the scourge of pornography, which is being published anew this year under the title Create in Me a Pure Heart. The tenth anniversary edition contains a new preface with practical recommendations to help pastors, lay leaders, families, educators, and civil leaders protect against pornography's many dangers.

Ascension Press will publish the new edition later this month, so be sure to look for more information in next month's newsletter!

Legal/Policy Updates

Bishops’ Statement on “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” -

Two USCCB Committee Chairmen, Bishop Robert Barron and Bishop David O’Connell, welcomed the Trump administration's executive order that “will help ensure the continued viability of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, guaranteeing equal educational opportunities for women and girls.”

Bishop Chairmen Say Executive Order on IVF is "Fatally Flawed" -

Two USCCB Chairmen, Bishop Barron and Bishop Daniel Thomas, also

responded to President Trump’s executive order calling for policies to make IVF less costly and more available, stating “As pastors, we see the suffering of so many couples experiencing infertility and know their deep desire to have children is both good and admirable; yet the Administration’s push for IVF, which ends countless human lives and treats persons like property, cannot be the answer.”